What did you do in KSP1 today?

[moogoob]

Yesterday I shoved a descender into Jool's atmosphere for the first time. Now, all that's left to visit is Eeloo and Dres.

[herbal space program]

Over the weekend I finished the most mission-critical phases of my Jool 5 challenge mission, recovering my landers from Tylo, Laythe, and Vall. I now have my mothership on a Tylo encounter trajectory that will put it on the same plane as and just inside the orbit of Pol. The remining legs, landing on Bop and Pol and bringing everybody home, should be a piece of cake compared to everything that went before....

Edited December 15, 2014 by herbal space program

[xiziz]

I finally got a sort of delta-winged aircraft to fly well with FAR, probably unnecessary with a single basic jet, but still. Flew a 1h survey contract. Its twitchy at low altitude/speed but handles great at 280m/s at >16km altitude, very stable at landing though.

[Martin0]

Yeah. I should've expected that earlier. But I was too ambitious to send the whole station in one piece to Eve.

The Discovery 1 Mission has been canceled. For now. And motherships are a no-go for my Kerbals, until I figure some way to avoid the wobbling. I wonder if there's any mod that fixes that...

You can use KAS to place struts on eva and s top the wobbling

[CatastrophicFailure]

He IS using KAS struts!! Jiminy Cricket people, have you even read his posts?!? :sticktongue:

@Kowgan:

those KAS struts are notoriously useless in my experience. Take a look @ a mod called Active Struts (Google it). Haven't tired it myself yet, my cyclotrons are staying put in orbit lol, but it may work better for you.

ETA: looking at your design close, you may have better luck pre-strutting the docking ports to the cyclotrons in the VAB, and on that note check out NovaPunch. It contains some ridiculously strong struts. Just four can hold the boosters rock solid on my 525-ton launcher.

Edited December 15, 2014 by CatastrophicFailure

[GusTurbo]

I put my new engines into the game for the first time!

More info here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99783-Early-WIP-Blue-Origin-BE-4-Engine

[Lt.Havoc]

Well, still trying to get into orbit. I di manage to get into space but I must do something wrong regarding orbits. Maybe my gravity turn is wrong or something but I always get very high up, almost 300km away from Kerbin but then I dont have enough fuel to get into a stable orbit because the burns take so long.

[justidutch]

Well, after another redesign of the entire process, I finally managed to close my ring. I got all the segments in place including the last one. What I found, however, is that it is not possible to close the system - at least I couldn't do it. When placing the final segment, I got the one end connected correctly, but the last remaining connection would not quite line up properly. In fact, the docking ports were actually technically docked since I could right-click them and choose to undock, but visually they were not close together.

So, I thought, no problem, I will send up a little tug and push the two ends together. And it wasn't a problem, I did just that. The two keyed ports lined up and connected together, and I could again right-click and choose to undock if I wished. Obviously I did not do that but to me this proved that the keyed ports were docked. Excitement and pride abounded.

But… After going to the tracking centre then back, this final connection was NOT docked!

Does anyone have previous experience using closed systems like this? Can you actually dock a ship to itself - since that is in effect what is going on?

[Slam_Jones]

After re-installing RSS and launching one too many rockets with missing components, I finally made a physical checklist. No more forgetting solar panels, or RCS blocks, or MonoProp, or crew, or... like anything else really. Hopefully!

[Kowgan]

@Theoderich, @Holyvision, @Martin0, @CatastrophicFailure:

One DOES simply love this community. You guys are awesome, even when posting already-known info!

Active Struts: My eyes flew by that mod thread several times, but I never thought they'd be any different than KAS' on-the-fly struts. Thanks for the tip, I'll look into that; as well as at Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and NovaPunch.

About pre-struting the ship: Yeah, I completely forgot about that until I launched the top science lab. And then, I completely forgot that I was gonna add the cyclotrons until the time has come.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Kowgan

[Aragosnat]

Well last night got a Duna Intercept that I should have waitied to do for my probes:

Other then that. Got a roid around the Mün while it was still in Mün's SOI. Just needed to make my pull have wider placed thrusters or use a larger center stack. Which would do the same:

[GloriousWater]

Pulled ridiculous G-forces in a plane using a smallish amount of Alt-F12

[CalculusWarrior]

Does anyone have previous experience using closed systems like this? Can you actually dock a ship to itself - since that is in effect what is going on?

Unfortunately, from what I've experienced, two docking ports on the same ship will not dock with each other. You need to disengage all connections and try to get all docking ports to engage at the same time.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Well, after another redesign of the entire process, I finally managed to close my ring. I got all the segments in place including the last one. What I found, however, is that it is not possible to close the system - at least I couldn't do it. When placing the final segment, I got the one end connected correctly, but the last remaining connection would not quite line up properly. In fact, the docking ports were actually technically docked since I could right-click them and choose to undock, but visually they were not close together.

So, I thought, no problem, I will send up a little tug and push the two ends together. And it wasn't a problem, I did just that. The two keyed ports lined up and connected together, and I could again right-click and choose to undock if I wished. Obviously I did not do that but to me this proved that the keyed ports were docked. Excitement and pride abounded.

But… After going to the tracking centre then back, this final connection was NOT docked!

http://jscript.ca/ksp-images/ring/Screen%20Shot%202014-12-13%20at%204.06.58%20PM.png

Does anyone have previous experience using closed systems like this? Can you actually dock a ship to itself - since that is in effect what is going on?

Sensitivity to initial conditions, or something like that. You've got some tiny, tiny, minuscule misalignment, maybe even beyond what can be corrected in the game, that amplifies with each segment, so by the time you get to the end it's off by those few meters. The bigger you go, the bigger the final error, and brother that thing is BIG! Wish I could give you more constructive advice on how to fix it other than, since you've already accomplished the actual hard part, rebuild the whole thing in the VAB and hyper-edit it into orbit (since it's (most likely) the game's error and not yours, it's not cheating). Other than that, MOAR BOOSTERS and spin that thing! YeeHaw!

@Theoderich, @Holyvision, @Martin0, @CatastrophicFailure:

One DOES simply love this community. You guys are awesome, even when posting already-known info!

Active Struts: My eyes flew by that mod thread several times, but I never thought they'd be any different than KAS' on-the-fly struts. Thanks for the tip, I'll look into that; as well as at Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and NovaPunch.

About pre-struting the ship: Yeah, I completely forgot about that until I launched the top science lab. And then, I completely forgot that I was gonna add the cyclotrons until the time has come.

Keep us posted. I would also say, don't give up the ship yet (no pun intended). It'd be a shame to loose all that work. See if maybe you can reconfigure it with the engines in the FRONT. I once sent 900 tons of SS parts to Moho that way (did not end well, docking ports all bugged). If you've got the engies PULLING instead of PUSHING, you usually won't have wobble problems. Scott Manley did a thing on going "space train" like that. Whether you roleplay about the possible unpleasantness of irradiating your Kerbals is entirely up to you.

[Norpo]

Made my first ksp part mod (really just a cube I made in blender)

It took me hours, and the texture isn't showing up, and for some reason it isn't treating it as a fuel tank like it should, but I actually made it so I can click and drag it, as, y'know, a part. Took me a while to figure out it was because I did the mesh collider wrong.

Best. Mod. Ever. (it needs a name, is useless small cube that weighs a ton taken?)

[CatastrophicFailure]

Made my first ksp part mod (really just a cube I made in blender)

http://i.imgur.com/kc8TRPq.png

It took me hours, and the texture isn't showing up, and for some reason it isn't treating it as a fuel tank like it should, but I actually made it so I can click and drag it, as, y'know, a part. Took me a while to figure out it was because I did the mesh collider wrong.

Best. Mod. Ever. (it needs a name, is useless small cube that weighs a ton taken?)

Ballastâ„¢ 1.0!

I could use some ballast right now actually....

[Red Iron Crown]

Unfortunately, from what I've experienced, two docking ports on the same ship will not dock with each other. You need to disengage all connections and try to get all docking ports to engage at the same time.

It can be done, as in this experiment.

Edit: Gah, imgur albums in spoiler tags are broken, here is Kasuha's experiment:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[worir4]

I tried 0.90 for 5 mins then realised I have college tomorrow and so I went to bed crying at this cruel position i am in. Reading about you guys playing 0.90 while I am confined to the human weakness of sleep. Alas I must wait another antagonising fifteen hours until I can enjoy the prospect of playing 0.90.... *Weep*

[CalculusWarrior]

It can be done, as in this experiment.

Edit: Gah, imgur albums in spoiler tags are broken, here is Kasuha's experiment:

http://imgur.com/a/sAMhW

My my, I was unaware of this! That is quite the experiment! (it may now haunt my nightmares)

Thanks for letting me know!

[numerobis]

I got KSP to display this screen:

I especially like the sideways exploding spider thing in the middle.

[DisarmingBaton5]

It should be obvious, as 0.90 was released today:

[Aragosnat]

I tried 0.90 for 5 mins then realised I have college tomorrow and so I went to bed crying at this cruel position i am in. Reading about you guys playing 0.90 while I am confined to the human weakness of sleep. Alas I must wait another antagonising fifteen hours until I can enjoy the prospect of playing 0.90.... *Weep*

I know that feeling. Have to pick someone up soon too. T.T But, good news is it will be there waiting.

[LethalDose]

I did nothing in KSP. With the new update, it's time to sit and wait for mods to update...

wheeee...

[Red Iron Crown]

I did nothing in KSP. With the new update, it's time to sit and wait for mods to update...

wheeee...

You should play with the new editor while you wait, the gizmos are pretty slick.

[cantab]

Got super hyped about .90 - and then carried on playing .25. Set my Tylo lander off with a periapsis kick. It seemed more stable than it was last time for some reason, but I still stuck to 1/3rd throttle. Despite that, several struts broke and eventually one drop tank was left secured by only its docking port and a single KAS strut.

16 orange tanks of fuel consumed and decoupled later, I'm in about a 2 hour elliptical orbit.

Now to replace the struts, then go back round for another kick. Unfortunately I didn't keep the KAS stuff with the ship so I can't add more but I believe I can reattach the ones I placed the endpoints for. On the bright side, the game performance has improved noticeably.