NyetiArts

Episode 6 To the Mun! And Minmus too. Mission 13: Sylph 1 Our rapidly advancing research has opened up new design possibilities, foremost among which is the Sylph A launcher. It has a powerful solid-fuelled first stage and liquid-fuelled second stage that can take a modest-sized payload into orbit. This first mission is fully remotely controlled... ... and will fly past both of Kerbin's moons. The probe approaches very close to the Munar surface, where a serious design flaw becomes apparent: the batteries aren't big enough to power a data transmission. Oops. Onwards to Minmus! Having gathered some useful data, the Sylph 1 probe adjusts its orbit to return to Kerbin. Unable to land or to transmit its data, it uses aerobraking to lower its apoapsis and ends up in a stable parking orbit. That's several milestones reached, and two important contracts fulfilled! Good job Sylph 1.

Episode 5 Mission 10: Gnome A ground tests Some day we'll need to explore the surfaces of other worlds and not just by whacking into them at orbital speed. Gnome A is a proof of concept rover, useful as a design exercise and especially for hoovering up all the Science around KSC, which we need for bigger rockets. Mission 11: Fairy A flights Jeb and Val meanwhile are pushing the (flight) envelope with the Fairy A, taking it to record altitudes above 10km and performing other worthy scientific studies. Mission 12: Kobold 2 The Kobold automated launch vehicle is back with a slightly sleeker, fancier payload as we prepare to put our first polar satellite into orbit. This time we're launching from Woomerang. The payload separates in the upper atmosphere... ... and ground control take over. The orbital injection goes off without a hitch, and our third artificial satellite is now in orbit!

Episode 4 Mission 7: Fairy A flights The Fairy A flights continue, including barnstorming the Island Airfield hangars and pushing altitude records. Val and Jeb take turns piloting and preparing for the next step in our crewed aerospace missions. Mission 8: Fairy X-1 One of our outstanding challenges is to break the sound barrier and although the little Fairy A is capable enough at subsonic speeds, the Juno engines aren't enough to push it to Mach 1. We need an elegant solution to this lack of power. Hahaha who am I kidding, we're strapping a couple of SRBs on the side and lighting the blue touch paper Mission accomplished! Mission 9: Kobold 1 Where was I? Oh yes. Going to space today. We need to launch a satellite and then deorbit and recover it. The Imp rocket isn't very powerful or controllable and we need to lift parachutes and a heat shield into orbit. The Kobold A rocket is a step up in power and sophistication, featuring three stages, reaction wheels, and most significantly an automated kOS launch sequence. Once the solid rocket launcher burns out, KSC assumes direct control and we can perform the more finicky orbital injection while saving enough fuel for deorbit. And there we have it, a 75x102km orbit, much neater than Imp 1. Re-entry is successful and we splash down in the sea west of KSC... ... but I failed to make sure that it was positively buoyant, or that it could survive deep ocean pressures. Oops. I wasn't going for a depth record there. But incredibly, part of the third stage survived re-entry and landed at KSC, successfully fulfilling the contract! Onwards and downwards?? Thank you! I'm glad my first playthrough thread is giving people some enjoyment There'll be plenty more launches, never fear.

Episode 3 Mission 5: Fairy A flights It's time to do something a little different: crewed atmospheric flight. The Fairy A is a little twin-engine turbojet. It's meant to be small and simple but is actually rather overpowered, and landing it can be tricky as it doesn't like to slow down. But it otherwise handles well and has room for a few scientific instruments (which now include barometers). Jeb and Val between them fly several valuable scientific missions and publicity stunts, easily reaching 2500m and even discovering a new base that we can use. Mission 6: Imp 1 Flying aeroplanes is great, but this is a space program when all's said and done, and it's time to raise the standard by raising something into orbit. Enter Imp A, a brand-new rocket with a liquid-fuelled second stage. Significantly, those little Spider engines are gimballed, giving us a degree of control once the spin-stabilised first stage burns out. Unfortunately there are no screenshots of the ascent. It was nerve-wracking, let me tell you! But... ... after a lot of panicking at mission control, Imp 1 fired its engines and boosted itself to a 123x490km orbit of Kerbin. Our first satellite is go! The money and data from our aircraft and satellite developments are going to be instrumental in taking the next steps towards the moons and planets of the Kerbol system. The tech tree is filling out a bit, and KSC now has an upgraded tracking station, mission control, and kerbonaut centre.

Episode 2 The next couple of missions are going to use the Sprite A with more fuel to reach higher altitudes. Mission 2: Sprite 2 That's definitely the upper atmosphere there, fulfilling another contract. Mission 3: Sprite 3 Fully fuelled, the Sprite A rocket shows its true potential and leaves the atmosphere, reaching an altitude of 90km. That's two more contracts fulfilled! With the data from the Sprite A missions our R&D department are able to roll out some exciting new technology. Most important for our next mission are parachutes and BIGGER ROCKETS!! (ahem) Mission 4: Sprite 4 The second-generation Sprite B sounding rocket is a rather bigger beast than Sprite A as it needs to be recoverable, and to do that it needs to lift parachutes and batteries as well as the Stayputnik core. The smaller Mite rockets act as detachable boosters. The command signal is sent and the parachutes deploy... And Sprite 4 lands mostly intact, fulfilling my contract to recover a vessel from a suborbital flight! Thanks for the comments and support on my first play report The Sprite rockets are supposed to be spin-stabilised in just this way. It's not easy to get right though! Ah well, I've started now ^^

Introduction I've been playing stock KSP, or visual mods only, for a while and reckoned it's time to have a go at a modded career mode playthrough. I wanted something in the same vein as stock but with more and different challenges. In particular I wanted crewed spaceflight to be more demanding, and uncrewed spaceflight to be more autonomous. I settled on the following mods with UnKerballed Start, kOS, and Snacks! the headline performers. Episode 1 Mission 1: Sprite 1 As in stock KSP, there's not much design space for the first rocket, but unlike the 'Jumping Flea' it will be a completely unguided sounding rocket. Each of my playthroughs have a different naming scheme. This time round I'm using mythical creatures - so here's Sprite A. It only needs to reach 200m so I'm only partly fuelling it. Light the fuse and watch it go... 'Catastrophic failure'? Nope, I fulfilled the 'First flight' and 'gather scientific data from Kerbin' contracts! Onward to greater things!

However fast it's going at the end of the runway. (About 190m/s.)

I'm playing career mode and it took a while to unlock enough technologies to make SSTOs worthwhile. But since I got them working I've become a convert. They're fun to design, interesting to fly, and save a lot of funds in the long run. Gazelle was my very first successful SSTO, a Mk1 based crew transfer spaceplane. It uses liquid fuel only (Whiplash + NERV) and won me my first K-Prize. Skipjack is a baby Skylon, a fully autonomous light launch vehicle powered by three RAPIERs. Mk2 parts get a bad rap but I wanted to make use of that cargo bay for probe launches, and I'm satisfied with the result. Its big sister, Sittang, took a lot more work to refine as the early versions were prone to exploding on touchdown. But it's now my standard medium-lift vehicle and my go-to for rescue and retrieval in Kerbin orbit. I'm particularly proud of the self-deploying payload arm. (Links are to the relevant KerbalX page or forum thread.)

For whatever reason the propellors don't seem to generate thrust in the water. If you can get them to work, fantastic! - but it might be a struggle.

Yep, I'm using both. I started out with just Making History and then decided I didn't want to miss out on robotic parts and propellors so I treated myself to Breaking Ground as well.

Hey all! I played the demo way back when and for some reason left it there for years. Last autumn I decided to pick up KSP again and give it a proper go. I'm having a fantastic time playing Career mode with the DLC. (When I succeeded in my first orbital rescue I felt like a goddamn hero.) Now I've unlocked the whole tech tree and I'm experimenting a bit more with craft design and more adventurous missions.

I've started playing around with VTOL craft and was particularly struck by Sandubba’s Stratz VTOL. My imitation isn't as elegant, but I'm still proud to have built and flown the Harpy VTOL. It's fully autonomous and uses three Panthers for vertical lift and a Goliath for forward thrust. It's capable of precise landings... ... and sustained flight, with a capacity of six kerbals and a range of 1300km. Craft file here.

Thanks for the award - I've tasted blood now! Gazelle very much emphasises the 'plane' in 'spaceplane'. My new craft Sittang takes the opposite approach: a heavy autonomous cargo rocket powered by two banks of four RAPIERs. In short it's a Skylon knockoff. It's much more efficient than Gazelle entering orbit... and it's much, much harder to land. Here's the report of a mission using Sittang SSTO to retrieve a missing part from LKO, starting and ending at the KSC runway. Full set here: https://imgur.com/a/LA56PFj Taking off from the runway. In orbit, with circular solar panels deployed clear of the exhaust. You can see the guidance unit just behind the nosecone, and the battery bank and reaction wheels at the aft end. I used robotics parts to build an automated grabber - one action group opens the cargo bay doors and arms the claw. Here we're about to latch onto the missing part, which is for some reason a turboshaft engine. Because of the 135t wet mass and to avoid the need for monopropellant tanks, Sittang uses bipropellant vernier engines for manoeuvring. Gotcha! Sittang gets pretty hot on re-entry, but not as hot as on the way up. Nearly... touchdown BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE (This was maybe my third or fourth attempt. Sittang has all the size of its namesake and none of the handling, and I crashed it more than once. Thank goodness for quickloading.) But we made it back to the runway at last, and whoever lost that engine we can give a clip round the ear with it.

Thanks for the welcome! With pleasure. Valentina, stoic as ever, prepares to ferry engineer Liz Kerman to Crow's Nest station for training and then to her long-term post at the newly assembled Eyrie station. The full set is at https://imgur.com/a/mCnEK6x Ascent: Orbital manoeuvres and first rendezvous: Gazelle docks with Crow's Nest, where Liz' experience can be recorded in the orbital lab. Transfer and second rendezvous: Gazelle docks safely and Liz transfers to Eyrie's habitation module. Re-entry: A nice clean approach... ... and a safe landing at the KSC runway.

As a newish player I submit my first SSTO, Gazelle. It's nothing exceptional, but it'll take a crew of three to LKO, dock, and fly back using two Whiplashes and a NERV. (Link includes shots of orbital burn and docking.)