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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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1 hour ago, String Witch said:

I derived a gas world from the Rald moon mod and called it Halo after the vast halo of wispy water atmosphere around it. I was supposed to be an ocean world with no landmass except ice caps but I couldn't be bothered to mess with height and normal maps, so I made it a gas... well it's far from giant, and in that respect it's probably one of the most impossible worlds anyone has made for KSP. It occupies the place of Minmus' orbit, with Minmus as a subsatellite (celestial mechanics be damned, subsatellites are cool). The atmosphere is an extremely high (proportionately speaking) 100,000m but so thin and cold I've yet to experience any shock heating.

 

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Featureless but pretty. I sent my thusfar only successful shuttle, Hornet, to observe my handiwork and make an attempt at flying.

 

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We're flying already, all the way up here (I couldn't get the atmosphere to look taller), but the atmosphere is too thin for Hornet's wings to get a hold and she enters into a pathetic tailspin. Trouble is, unlike on Kerbin, the atmosphere below never becomes thick enough for her to right herself through lift alone.

 

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At around 17000m, clouds begin to envelope the craft. They have a nice variation in tone from turquoise to an icy blue, presumably thanks to Scatterer.

If you want the sunflare:

 

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Flight is not easily accomplished by a heavy cargo shuttle with bulky aerospikes on the rear, but a jet-powered plane with good gliding ability would be right at home. A horizon can be observed through the clouds once sufficiently low, which eases the trepidation of the descent a lot (for me, at least).

That's pretty sweet looking. Subsatellites are possible too, just less likely. Besides, this is a game, I can overlook some realism for the sake of awesomeness. :wink: Also, where did you get those realistic aerospike engines??? 

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3 minutes ago, kraden said:

That's pretty sweet looking. Subsatellites are possible too, just less likely. Besides, this is a game, I can overlook some realism for the sake of awesomeness. :wink: Also, where did you get those realistic aerospike engines??? 

The aerospikes are the Fulcrum from the Mk3 Expansion. They have an amazing gimbal of 20 degrees but only in a linear direction, hence the way I mounted them.

 

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I've been struggling to figure out the new comms system, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Sent up Explorer 1, to do stuff at the Mun. I planned on having it impact the surface, but it had no signal for the encounter, so I just did some science and sped by. Much to my dismay, none of my satellites could reach Explorer 1 from its periapsis (I think it was due to Communotron 16 on Explorer's range). I have a pathetic comms network of 3 satellites, though the most recent one, the first in Keosynchronous orbit, has been very useful. I launched it after Explorer, and it managed to get the data off the probe and send it home.

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Turns out Minmus has somehow escaped the ore scanner, and a client wanted that data badly enough to pay 400,000 roots for it. So the engineers cobbled together a cheap doohickey and off it went.

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Watching the central scanner revolving turns out to be strangely hypnotic... mission control blames the effect on the wonderful shade of green... so soothing and spinny...

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Instead of continuing my new 1.2 campaign, I started importing old mods of mine (mostly custom parts I created over the years) into 1.1.3 to polish them, fix them, and make them working 100% of the way instead of just tweaking a few numbers for a mission's sake and calling it good.   My first part to be imported is a very old (0.23.5) propeller that still had old Aero curves/ISP and even old code no longer used in parts nowadays... Suffice it to say it took me over 5 hours split in 3 days to get right, and I still have to clean the code (remove ignored lines with"//" clean up the part name, description, research cost/node... etc) but it is done and working as I want it to.

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Jebediah flying a science delta-wing, testing the new propeller for the.... 25th time ?  It's actually working like we want it to, for once !

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The new 'FS-100 "Owl" Propeller' up-close... Derived from an old 0.23-ish FireSpitter engine, it will carry you to just above 10'000 meters at around 100 m/s speed.

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Near it's maximum stable height of 11'250 meters, this engine will carry you at 77.5 m/s with extreme reliably and stability.

 

I needed this engine as it won't keep climbing to the stratosphere (+30'000 meters) like my other propeller which I used on the "Scott's Feather" reproduction I made a few months back.  So now I have one for regular atmosphere cruising, and is very efficient, and I have the other for Stratosphere/Orbital missions which eats electricity like crazy.

The "Owl" starts out @ 110m/s at 1'000m, and as you keep climbing it steadily decreases speed (100m/s @ 4750m, 85m/s @ 8'800m, and then around 75m/s @ 11'000m).
The engine has enough power for heavier loads and works on electricity and atmosphere only (no oxygen required).

Special thanks to @NathanKell and @Dr. Jet in the thread  "[HOWTO] Airbreathing Engines in KSP 1.0" dating back to 2015 that allowed me to put-in finishing touches on my engine I would never have grasped otherwise. KSP 1.x mechanics for the thrust/atmo/speed curves is MUCH different from pre-1.0 and was extremely confusing to say the least.  I almost gave-up at some point.
Hopefully my other parts to be polished for 1.2 will be mush easier to bring over, and the new 1.2 aero won't mess the Owl's performance (to be tried soon!).

 

 


 

Edited by Francois424
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2 hours ago, kraden said:

I lowered it but kept its inclination. I like it's uniqueness and felt that is inclination was an extension of that. I had thought that I had taken a screenshot of its final orbit but when I was loading to imgur I didn't see it and it was quite late. I can post it later today if anyone would care to see it. 

Yes.

It needs a name too.

Orphan, lucky, found, trifecta, golden boy, trimus, trimun, baby....

 

ME

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1 hour ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Yes.

It needs a name too.

Orphan, lucky, found, trifecta, golden boy, trimus, trimun, baby....

 

ME

I named it "Ulchabhán" after my wife's favorite animal: the owl.  I figure its mildly appropriate as it was so stealthy in the night sky that I almost didn't realize it was there.  Also, Ulchabhán is one of my favorite words in Irish :rolleyes:

(sorry about the mouse in the pics, I keep forgetting that this screenshot program doesn't autohide the mouse)

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2 hours ago, RoboRay said:

I sent another mission to Laythe...  this time to drop off a rover.

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Full mission album:  http://imgur.com/a/s5RgE

 

 

Nice deployment, never thought of using an jet stage for targeting, and yes targeting is an issue on Laythe because of all the water and rugged terrain outside it. 

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31 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Nice deployment, never thought of using an jet stage for targeting, and yes targeting is an issue on Laythe because of all the water and rugged terrain outside it. 

Thanks!  Yeah, you really don't want to land a rover off-target on Laythe... some of those islands are pretty small.

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3 minutes ago, RoboRay said:

Thanks!  Yeah, you really don't want to land a rover off-target on Laythe... some of those islands are pretty small.

 

This was pretty awesome way of getting a rover down there... I usually build too big to use something like that, but I loved how you did it.

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Some more testing and developing occurred: :rolleyes: Attempts were made to enable a lander to function effectively as a rover (stick some girders under it, some wheels on those and mash the pedal). Also an SSTO design was more thoroughly tested. It started ballooning out in a bad way just to be able to take 15 tons to the Mun.

But here's something momentous. While the NANC Brown crew get things done at Dres (Valentina and Sigmund have taken it upon themselves to take turns playing Tag with asteroids...to make up for forgetting to pack any Claws) and the Lithia's crew still wait to enter Jool's SOI, KSC finally finds something to do. The finally settle on a station design to launch from Muna Industria.

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With some help from pilot Eiyuu Kerman, the lady of the day, Eligy Kerman, arranges the KAS connection between the slugging miner vessel Graveheart and the OS Cubis Mun Station.

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For some reason/with what part I don't remember in there, the station is not DOA. No kerbal had to be sent to deploy the station's one solar panel to allow it to charge its batteries. Basic microwave power ability via MKS Lite brings it to life on its own. After Graveheart does its work and Eligy removes the pipes, she stands right there like a mad woman as the station launches off, threatening to blow her away.

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Since Muna Industria is not on the equator the station is obliged to do a plane change and resolve that little nag.

Habitation and other necessary modules will go up in due time, all launched from Mun, except supplies of things like Enriched Uranium, Argon and Xenon. 50km altitude might be a bit low for the station but there's enough RCS tankage and thrust aboard to adjust if needed. Finally, the pancake launch vehicle deorbits itself and Bill, lead engineer among the Industria staff, gets cracking on the list and designs for things to send up.

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The exploration rover is down on Mars at last, and Principal Investigator Bartdon has embarked on a long journey of discovery that will allow him to see some of the best-known sights on Mars.

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Hebes Chasma, viewed from the South.

The rover is fitted with a camera that takes panoramic views and the results are interesting, as can be seen here.

Bartdon is taking your requests for panoramic views over here:D

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I've finally managed to get back to play KSP again, after having a real-life induced extended break. Not much was done today, but I finally decided to just timewarp in my 1.1.3 save to get to an Eve->Kerbin transfer window and bring Clauma Kerman, brave pilot of the first working 1.1.3+FAR Eve lander back home:
Imgur Album

Edited by soulsource
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I loaded a fixed version of my Pelican (seen earlier undergoing RUD) and paused my game for a bit. I came back, unpaused it... qIAXU9C.jpgand then it exploded.                                                      (It teleported about 1/2way into the runway, then physics turned on)

Edited by EpicSpaceTroll139
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