What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Norpo]

I, er, "landed" on bop.

At 50 m/s. Lucky Gregcal, he managed to EVA before it crashed and he survived.

I wonder if I can rendevouz with a spacecraft in orbit with just an EVA pack... Well, looks like this mission is going to be moot for the most part, but at least I actually got to Jool. The lander with science modules is trashed, though.

[Slam_Jones]

I wonder if I can rendevouz with a spacecraft in orbit with just an EVA pack...

I got a Kerbal into low Munar orbit with (mostly) just EVA pack. The ship ran out of fuel halfway back to orbit, so he jumped out and EVA'd to orbit. Sent a rescue ship and picked him up.

[zekes]

Finished two new products today.

[Spatzimaus]

After many refinements and design iterations, I finally returned to Laythe with my long-range spaceplane, the Sleazy Weasel 7e. Even though it was designed for trips like this, I hadn't actually flown it to Laythe since 0.22, so I was overdue for a return trip. It doesn't quite have enough range to get there and back without any mid-flight refueling, but it gets pretty close.

Normally, I top off my planes in low Kerbin orbit before long trips like this, but this time I decided to see how far I could get without any Kerbin-area refueling or slingshots. I managed (barely) to link up with my Pol fuel station:

After topping off the tanks, I landed on Pol just so that I could say that Jeb had done it in this version. (The fuel station had already landed there to refill, but it's unmanned so it doesn't really count.) This plane is designed to land vertically on airless moons, although slopes can get pretty hairy, especially at night. Pol has a very rough surface and little illumination, so landing on the night side makes it very difficult to judge your landing spot. I should have just waited untl day, but I was in a hurry.

Then, it was off to Laythe. I slingshotted off Tylo right into a close Laythe intercept (altitude ~30km) with let me use two light aerobraking passes before attempting a landing. Unfortunately, this meant landing on the night side of Laythe as well, which makes it very hard to spot islands even with satellite maps:

(The island I'm going to land on is a bit to the right.)

I made it down safely, landing in a small valley on the center of that island. One of the nice things about the B9 landing gear is that they also function as rover wheels, which allowed me to drive up a nearby slope to watch the sunrise.

Now it's time to head home, although it should an uneventful trip. I should be able to make it all the way back to Kerbin without refueling, but I'll aim for another Tylo slingshot on the way out just to be safe.

More pictures of this plane, and the .craft file, are available in my post in the Akademy Awards thread.

[Bigbootie]

Little busy today babysitting mission maneuvers.

[Francois424]

Tried My Flying Science truck (for lack of better name, will name later) on Laythe.

Few things went wrong:

- The crew for the Lab didn't report for duty in time, and since Bob is still on the north pole with his Flying Lab and crew, nobody noticed it until it was too late. Oh well at least I have all the snacks and the Lab's room to myself for the trip now *smiles*

- Staging had a short and ejected the beam containing all the parachutes... Tanbur Kerman kept screaming the whole time in panic, especially since we did not aerobreak enough into the atmosphere and bounced twice into orbit.

- Third time's a charm and this time was flying into Laythe's skies. Only to realize the control surfaces where all seized-up. Quick thinking from Merzon's Kerman part, switched the Electric propeller to reverse at full power for a while, then back to pushing after a few minutes when we started regaining control.

- ( I think this was OK right ? what else can go wrong ?) Well, the engineer who designed this Flying truck warned that the solar panels might not provide enough power to keep the engine 100% throttled at Laythe and that we should worry of the night, where 50% might be a luxury... And yet no land is in sight, all ocean. At least Tanbur had stopped screaming when we reached leveled flight... Where do they hire these newbies nowadays ? I wonder. Well after 90min of flight and slowly easing the throttle as night engulfed us, I spotted a 'deformation' at 135 heading... thinking it might be land we headed there and landed on a small island. good thing too, running at 50% throttle as the stars came out was pretty hairy.

No damage, everyone landed safe and sound.

- - -

Since Merzon had kept so damned cool the whole trip, even smiling like a Bada55 the whole time, he went to plant a flag looking back at the truck, then control told him he'd had won his orange suit status for his act of bravery getting the team there. He was so happy and I went outside with him to take the picture :

This flying Lab is really earning points with the Brass; Kerbin, Eve, and now Laythe. Next crew is heading to Duna I guess, I don't think it's going to work, but the engineers and the crews surpassed all my expectations lately !

They are calling me for supper, see you around guys !

Edited November 15, 2014 by Francois424

[Bigbootie]

[Jouni]

I started flying the refueling missions for my 6.4x Tylo ship. It turns out I may need 30-40 launches instead of the 20-30 I estimated earlier. I'm using stock engines and fuel tanks in the 6.4x Kerbol System. This means I can easily launch around 100 tonnes to orbit, but beyond that the part count increases steeply, and the launches take much longer.

My first fuel tanker is a combined upper stage/payload design, similar to the ones I used in 0.23.5. When launched on top of of the first stage and the boosters of my 6.4x Mun rocket, it can deliver an almost full S3-14400 fuel tank to orbit.

With around 100 parts and a high average TWR, the rocket reaches orbit quickly. The fuel tanker is small enough and agile enough that I can dock easily, regardless of the direction I'm approaching the target from. This is important for the later launches, because the other ship is going to be very slow to turn around with its fuel tanks nearly full.

[StrandedonEarth]

Landed my Duna base on Ike for a quick science-and-photo-op

[MartGonzo]

Took the bubble ship out for a spin to Moho

without waiting for transfer windows

and got back with ¾ full tanks

I think this thing might be a bit cheaty

[Red Iron Crown]

Landed my Duna base on Ike for a quick science-and-photo-op

http://i.imgur.com/dTsUJvW.png

Flag placement made me do a double take, well done!

[GiantTank]

Today, I discovered that with cfg edits and 400,000 ton rockets, physics breaks down.

As you can see, the rocket spawns off the pad (45 meter wide), and I needed to cfg edit launch clamps to make them strong enough to hold this beast.

[Blindblom]

I started a new science mode save yesterday and today I landed on the Mun for the first time in it and returned with 0,01 units of fuel left. That's efficiency.

[pincushionman]

Built me a nice transforming science rover to take to the Mun and Minmus, got on a screaming-fast encounter with the latter (the Mun was in the way of any better Minmus encounters at the time and I was impatient), and...

...realized I had brought no instruments with me. At least I know I can get to the body with the launch and transfer stages for the next time. On a higher note, it was on a return trajectory and I had more than enough dV to do any trimming I might have had to do, so my Kerbals are available for another attempt.

I'll try to recreate the first failed launches for the "best explosions" thread. It was kind of epic.

[Xacktar]

Attempted to build a flying bed in sandbox... it's not quite stable yet.

Then started a new science-mode game and managed to put a very agile little flyer together.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Xacktar

[Lunaran]

the baby shower ended with a beautiful, artificial meteor shower made of hand-sculpted babies

jesus

"congratulations patty, we're going to celebrate your baby with a display of flaming babies"

remind me not to have you plan my bachelor party

[Francois424]

@MartGonzo Very very nice ship... what MOD is that from ?

Took the bubble ship out for a spin to Moho

without waiting for transfer windows

and got back with ¾ full tanks

I think this thing might be a bit cheaty

http://i.imgur.com/pY27sMV.png

Ah found it... going to try and get the bubble part and animation working in my install if I can. That would make a very good cockpit most of the times.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Francois424

[dharak1]

Looks like some kind of Oblivion mod. The movie not the game of course.

[Kamuchi]

Sent Das Valdez into space as he sent me in his KSA bootcamp session (:

https://imgur.com/a/2BRJH

[MartGonzo]

@MartGonzo Very very nice ship... what MOD is that from ?

Ah found it... going to try and get the bubble part and animation working in my install if I can. That would make a very good cockpit most of the times.

Looks like some kind of Oblivion mod. The movie not the game of course.

Yes indeed, devo made this fun little ship

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83488-!-0-23-5-Oblivion-Bubbleship-%28Wayland-Corp-%29-Download

it requires infernal robotics and for the transparent cockpit you need RPM and then edit the bubbleships part.cfg file found in:

Kerbal Space Program\GameData\WaylandCorp\Parts\Command\Oblivion_Pod

at the end of the file add the lines

MODULE

{

name = JSITransparentPod

}

[Francois424]

RPM and Infernal robotics ?

... What don't I do for a simple part, lol.

Will give that a try in my test install of KSP later. Thanks for the pointers !

Yes indeed, devo made this fun little ship

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83488-!-0-23-5-Oblivion-Bubbleship-%28Wayland-Corp-%29-Download

it requires infernal robotics and for the transparent cockpit you need RPM and then edit the bubbleships part.cfg file found in:

Kerbal Space Program\GameData\WaylandCorp\Parts\Command\Oblivion_Pod

at the end of the file add the lines

MODULE

{

name = JSITransparentPod

}

[StrandedonEarth]

Did a little target practice, er, stage disposal on Ike http://coub.com/view/4130x

Sorry if I'm thread-spamming, but hey, it was an achievement. Hopefully I can put together a clip for Youtube tomorrow

Edited November 16, 2014 by StrandedonEarth
Changed pic

[Superfluous J]

Today I designed about 90% the successor to what's pictured in my signature below.

I'm landing this one on the runway if it kills me.

[Srpadget]

Oooo-kayyy, I've never done THAT before...

I've been spending quite a bit of time building up Kerbin-SOI infrastructure (fuel stations in Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus orbits, a fleet of nuke-powered tugs shuttling between them, reusable landers docked at the Mun and Minmus stations, an SSTO fuel lifter and a crew-launch spaceplane) to get set for a big interplanetary push. Finally got that done, and realized that at some point it had turned into a "chore" rather than "fun". So I made a quick pleasure-jaunt with one of the Minmus landers (Minmus is one of my favorite worlds; partly because of the low gravity, and partly because of the Kerbals' delightful "delicious minty dessert" flavor text).

And...I crashed. On MINMUS.

I have NEVER crashed on Minmus before. Even my very first landing on another world, when I forgot to extend the landing gear, worked out okay. (Crashed on other, heavier-gravity airless worlds, oh yeah. But... MINMUS?)

So I followed up by taking one of the Mun landers off to the middle of those horrible corrugated badlands near the South Pole just to prove I still knew how to land.

I have obviously been spending WAY TOO MUCH TIME doing all those rendezvous/dock maneuvers and not enough time actually GOING PLACES lately....

(The good news is that the Minmus lander crew are okay. That Mk 2 lander can zipped along for kilometers like a flippin' hockey puck, but it finally did slow down and stop without hitting anything lethal. I guess tomorrow it'll be a rescue mission. Or possibly jetpacking back to Minmus Orbital Station. I never have jetpacked to Minmus orbit before. And being the first to jetpack from surface to orbit just might help reduce the teasing my poor pilot is going to get for being the first Kerbal to lose a ship to MINMUS's gravity....)

[Jouni]

I continued refueling my 6.4x Tylo ship. After 8 missions, two of the seven stacks in the Kerbin escape stage are full, and one is 1/3 full. At one point, I docked a temporary illumination module to the main docking port of the ship, as I was getting tired of docking in the darkness.

After the monopropellant tanks of the ship were full, I added O-10 engines to the fuel tanker, and started using them for rendezvous and deorbiting. This, along with learning better ascent paths, made it possible to deliver an S3-14400 tank full of fuel on each launch.

I also learned of a minor problem with the launcher I'm using. When the boosters are finally dropped, the central stack has to fly out from a narrow ~25 m long tunnel. The rocket has better be flying straight at this point.