What did you do in KSP1 today?

[VenDei]

Completed the construction of a station core in LKO.

 

[lovec1990]

Here my work from today: Expanding Asteroid base

Spoiler

 

Now my computer or game can bearly handle this thing i have so much lag. 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

@Bornholio Seeing as you're playing in RO, have you also encountered this problem in which many fairings do not generate in the sizes and positions appropriate for their bases?

 

Anyways, I launched an unmanned shuttle with a grabber to recover the other Kerbal who was now in an elliptical orbit around Kerbin after having not been taken all the way home by her original rescue craft (the type that was discovered to disintegrate on reentry).

Didn't get a picture of the first launch, but I think I got a vid for later. Anyways, the first launch had a fuel drain issue which resulted in it tumbling out of control at about 10km. Luckily it was not traveling fast enough to be ripped apart, and I was able to ditch the boosters and burn off fuel during the glide back, and recover the most expensive components. The second launch, pictured above, went much more smoothly.

Overshot a bit, but had good enough glide capabilities to make the runway. The guidance software has been dubbed "Plowman Hal" though as it clipped the grass on landing.

Finally I've been testing a prototype Mun rover.

The box girders are nice for crash-resistant battery casings. I might want to move my solar panels though, they're in a great place to get smashed. I've since added a roll bar to protect the kerbals. Might add a small reaction wheel or probe core for maintaining orientation on those long Mun gravity jumps.

Edited May 27, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139
DYAC

[Bornholio]

@EpicSpaceTroll139  Not that I can think of.  But...https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19_dhwSioZODCCtMFD0kZOtbmbg--ryoE0nzoWJL2cRc/edit#gid=0

"Using this DLL (3.20b2) https://www.dropbox.com/s/phujorrj357w3hk/ProceduralFairings.dll?dl=1 "

Also using the noted pull request builds in the spreadsheet.

One thing of note was some of the fairing textures in the past had weird 90deg shifts in illumination shadow.

I'll take a peak at the part you're showing later today.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

3 minutes ago, Bornholio said:

@EpicSpaceTroll139  <Snip>

Oh well there's my problem... I thought I wasn't supposed to download the ones highlighted orange... with any luck it will work now.

[Zeiss Ikon]

(Science game)

Maltrey and Magcella (engineer) reached and successfully latched onto captured asteroid Valentina 1, rechristening the combined vessel as "Fuel Station Valentina Alpha).

As previously noted, the drill/converter vessel, which was rather hurriedly modified from a Far Traveler transfer stage, was a bit of a pig to maneuver -- the center of mass was displaced, both laterally and fore and aft, leading to a high load on either pilot or SAS module for any precision maneuvering.  The lander can, however, did have enough torque to keep things lined up for burns (though multiple small corrections were required to get a close encounter).

Valentina 1 was in a four-day orbit, well inside Mun (and inclined around 25 degrees), so there wasn't a long wait after the transfer burn to get to their intercept.

Maltrey armed the claws well ahead.  Use of claws on asteroids has been demonstrated on two prior missions, but this is the first that's intended to remain docked indefinitely, and three claws were specified to ensure a completely rigid connection (in case a later ship needs to push the rock, it need only have a compatible docking clamp).  The drill is mounted between the claws; the converter and most of the ore tankage are in the other two between tank spaces.

Eventually, the asteroid got close enough to show on radar.

Then naked eye.

In another innovation, Maltrey verified a technique that came down directly from Werner, of using the nav ball display to accomplish most of the final orbit matching with the main engines, rather than RCS.  This makes less difference with this vessel, which has the new Vernor RCS units that run on Lf/O, but will be very useful in future asteroid rendezvous and other sun-orbit docking missions, to reduce the amount of RCS fuel required and/or save fuel in general (interplanetary transfer engines are far more efficient than even Vernors).

Eventually, after three attempts (due to the drill having limited extension range, thus requiring connecting with flat or convex surface between the claws to reach rock) Maltrey got docked to the fuel resource space rock in a position that allowed ore harvesting and conversion to take place.  Calculations were correct; the fuel cell capacity was sufficient to operate the converter (though not the converter and drill simultaneously), and the abundance of ore allowed drilling and conversion to slowly get ahead of consumption by the fuel cells: Fuel Station Valentina Alpha was open for business.

With fuel cell power for the drill and converter, orientation of the asteroid relative to the sun is irrelevant, and the fuel cells consume a minuscule amount of fuel compared to what the converter produces, with the supervision of a skilled engineer and the high ore content of the asteroid.  Even so, resource conversion takes time, so Maltrey and Magcella will be kept busy converting fuel for a while before they're ready to refuel an interplanetary ship.  They may even need to be rotated home to Kerbin first, given that the upcoming Duna mission(s) will require little if any more dV than the ones to Gilly did -- but once Kerbalkind is ready to reach for Dres, they'll be able to launch a much larger ship with only partially filled tanks, and refuel here before burning for the outer system.

[NISSKEPCSIM]

Testing out my X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane nicknamed 'Space Oddity' on a suborbital test mission using the first stage of an 'Atlas' rocket, with huge wings to counter the aerodynamic forces of the wings on the shuttle.

However, the plane started to roll back and forth during re-entry and landing, so much so that, even in my futile attempt to use Mechjeb autopilot, it still couldn't control it. I've traced the problem to something called the dihedral effect, caused by my wings having too much of a 'V' shape.

And yes, I did plaster the plane with decals, just because I couldn't find a way to recolour the stock parts. (Nobody mention kerbpaint. I've tried that. Whenever i load a craft with it, it paints the entire craft bright pink. )

[astroheiko]

Today I brought my new mothership into orbit. The old design was not bad but I wanted to have a slimmer design. The launch was a bit difficult but this is always the case with the huge mother ships.

 

At the third attempt it worked and the mothership arrived in orbit. It then waited in a 600 km orbit to the rest of the equipment.

 

Here comes the rest. One lander, a rover, two satellites and a claw.

 

The rendezvous has worked and I dock.

 

And here it is. Complete equipment with all the stuff.

 

Here is a picture from the front. The lander can also dock in front, in addition, the two outer tanks are designed for docking. This allows you to increase the range or mount one of the tanks at the lander to better refuel when the mothership can not land alone.

Now begins the test phase. The mothership is to complete extensive test runs at Iota before I send it elsewhere. It is also very useful as an asteroid catcher when the lander is attached at the front and the claw is placed at the bottom of the lander. But I have to try it out.

[qzgy]

3 hours ago, GDJ said:

Don't feel bad. Building a plane that can dogfight successfully is one of the hardest thing one can do in KSP in terms of Aircraft. I've failed dozens of times in several competitions. Out of all the aircraft I've built, only one was truly successful.

Beautiful plane BTW. Nice design.

It was fun, I don't really feel to bad. It was successful against some other designs. Also, thanks!

[Bornholio]

@astroheiko Um why is the docking port on that "Figure" with the large headdress glowing so.

[NISSKEPCSIM]

Some VAB shots of the modified Dyna-Soar spaceplane atop its lifter rocket, a variant of the 'Atlas' family, with comically enormous wings to counter the aerodynamic forces of the tiny wings of the shuttle orbiter.

Here are some picture of just the X-20 and its Mission Module, in this case a propulsion module. The MM (Mission Module) can be tailored to suit a mission's needs, as the lifter rocket has enough power to launch the space shuttle with a 5 ton leeway for small payloads within the orbiter's cargo bay or MM.

And now just some shots of the glider itself. It is fitted with two auxiliary jet engines in case of an overshoot, and can fly for up to 30 minutes straight before depleting its supplies. The way I fixed the dihedral effect was by making the wing one continuous part via Procedural Wings. The reason I was suffering the dihedral effect last time was because I had one main wing, attached to the body of the aircraft, and one attached to that wing. Since the stock engine only calculated the aerodynamic forces of a wing from its root, and not its tip, I was able to exploit this and make a practically identical Dyna-Soar, but also countering the dihedral effect.

A shot with the payload bay and docking port open:

Edited May 27, 2017 by NISSKEPCSIM

[astroheiko]

7 minutes ago, Bornholio said:

@astroheiko Um why is the docking port on that "Figure" with the large headdress glowing so.

An illuminator with white light is mounted on the claw. I forgot to turn it off. It is very close to the docking port.

[PT]

Uh.

Oh.

Help?

[ARS]

Trying to brute force my way to fly my 500 ton mining ship USK "Kishimura". It's so heavy and makes my laptop lags like hell at 2FPS (700+ parts is a no joke) before I finally gave up trying to fly this thing

So... I decided to see some KSP stuff in forum, before I'm frozen in astonishment seeing this:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SilverFlimsyBluetickcoonhound-mobile.mp4

That was AWESOME!

Edited May 27, 2017 by ARS

[Julien Kerman]

So today I built a new rocket in order to launch my first moon probes. Payload to LEO: ~ 7-8 tons, Payload to the moon: ~2-3 tons.

Boosters: 4 x LR-79

Core stage: 1 x RD-108

Upper stage: 1 x LR-91

The rocket worked perfectly, I launched at least 7 of them to the moon in order to satisfy contracts or get science points.

[Bornholio]

31 minutes ago, PT said:

Uh.

Oh.

Help?

Force DX11.  KSP_x64.exe -single-instance -force-d3d11, make sure EVE is configured right.  Stop plate tectonics.

Edited May 27, 2017 by Bornholio

[scottadges]

On 5/16/2017 at 1:20 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Doze nozzles doe! 

LOL, you mean the engines? or the plethora of docking ports on these ships?

[xendelaar]

3 hours ago, astroheiko said:

Today I brought my new mothership into orbit. The old design was not bad but I wanted to have a slimmer design. The launch was a bit difficult but this is always the case with the huge mother ships.

 

At the third attempt it worked and the mothership arrived in orbit. It then waited in a 600 km orbit to the rest of the equipment.

 

Here comes the rest. One lander, a rover, two satellites and a claw.

 

The rendezvous has worked and I dock.

 

And here it is. Complete equipment with all the stuff.

 

Here is a picture from the front. The lander can also dock in front, in addition, the two outer tanks are designed for docking. This allows you to increase the range or mount one of the tanks at the lander to better refuel when the mothership can not land alone.

Now begins the test phase. The mothership is to complete extensive test runs at Iota before I send it elsewhere. It is also very useful as an asteroid catcher when the lander is attached at the front and the claw is placed at the bottom of the lander. But I have to try it out.

 the things you build never cease to amaze me. absolutely stunning. 

you must have a lot of patience flying these behemoths. 

[Jouni]

While waiting for serious missions to resume, I built another silly rocket.

Spoiler

 

Rockets within rockets within rockets...

Spoiler

 

I'm too lazy to calculate delta-v manually these days, so I wasn't sure whether Jeb had enough fuel to get back.

Fortunately he did have more than enough.

[Wrench Head]

Built a PBR Hull and used SM marine Parts to trick it out.

 

[Frank_G]

Well, it was far to hot for VR today, so i fired up KSP instead of Elite and built a cargo SSTO, that can deliver an orange tank to 90 km orbit.

Just enough fuel for de-orbit, but hey... done is done.

Deploying the cargo. The small size of the craft allows large payloads to exit through the front bay only.

Back on its way down. The small wings up front contain some fuel to keep the craft from flipping during descent.

And we are down. Missed the runway by far, but now i know, that it can land in the ocean while staying in one piece.

All in all it is a very efficient build with some room for optimization. A six engine setup exists as well, but it was much less fun to fly, as it took ages to bring it up to speed.

[kraden]

5 hours ago, PT said:

Uh.

Oh.

Help?

Open the VAB using the menu on the bottom left, then exit and the water will be normal. 

Edited May 27, 2017 by kraden
Specificity

[PT]

Just now, kraden said:

Open the VAB, then exit and the water will be normal. 

It was not. It was gone. Completely. And after next try sky was gone as well. And then it all crashed.

[astroheiko]

2 hours ago, xendelaar said:

 the things you build never cease to amaze me. absolutely stunning. 

you must have a lot of patience flying these behemoths. 

Thank you for the compliment.

Once the mothership is in orbit, it can be controlled normally - now. I spent half of the construction time adjusting the thrust angle. The thrusters were sometimes too far down, then too far up. If it is full of fuel, it always wanted to steer "up" when it is almost empty then "down". I then also had to adjust the order as the tanks are emptied and mount some Reaction Wheels. Now it can hold the course.

I build such monsters just because I'm too stingy to constantly send rockets up. I also want to be as flexible as possible when I visit a system. And I'm always afraid to have too little dV.

What I still lack is a reasonably cargo SSTO aircraft. The only thing I did was terrible.

And - I just ran out of likes - every day the same thing.

Greetings

[JadeOfMaar]

29 minutes ago, astroheiko said:

Once the mothership is in orbit, it can be controlled normally - now. I spent half of the construction time adjusting the thrust angle. The thrusters were sometimes too far down, then too far up. If it is full of fuel, it always wanted to steer "up" when it is almost empty then "down". I then also had to adjust the order as the tanks are emptied and mount some Reaction Wheels. Now it can hold the course.

Ah. My concern is real. I was hoping there was some form of counter weight for the ship's Bridge to prevent this problem since I think you never showed the underside.

My grand tour station suffers a worse problem. I have to keep a fuel balancer mod running to stabilize it. One of its three stacks drains faster or slower than the other two. And I think I know why.

Edited May 27, 2017 by JadeOfMaar