What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Draconiator]

How small can you make something?   I wanted to find out today.  With Tweakscale, I came up with this:

 

 

And nope, it does NOT fly like it should.

[TheEpicSquared]

Just now, Draconiator said:

How small can you make something?   I wanted to find out today.  With Tweakscale, I came up with this:

 

 

And nope, it does NOT fly like it should.

It's a toy Kerbal rocket!  

[qromodynmc]

I edited and made coub from video i recorded yesterday;

http://coub.com/view/h5meo

is it possible to embed coub videos on forum?

Edited November 20, 2016 by qromodynmc

[LordFerret]

3 hours ago, Aragosnat said:

I find it odd that manned Crafts can talk to each other if one has relay/antenna and the other does not have the extra.

Picturing the one without an antenna sending morse code to the other with a flashlight.

 

WHAT IS WITH IMGUR ?!? Damn!!! This page took f.o.r.e.v.e.r to load ... all because of waiting on Imgur to load images. They're really sucking lately. Anyone else notice this???

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Draconiator said:

How small can you make something?   I wanted to find out today.  With Tweakscale, I came up with this:

 

 

And nope, it does NOT fly like it should.

You've created Kerbal Model Rocketry!

Edited November 20, 2016 by LordFerret

[Sharpy]

Second day of work on Gilly comes to an end.

The day was dominated by Trucky rescue. Trucky usually has no problems carrying oversized loads...

But sometimes enough is enough, and trying to clip an ore tank into the cabin resulted in an explosion. That took the ore tank (meh), the tiny reaction wheel (tssk), the basic reaction wheel (ouch) and the monopropellant tank (Ouch!!!) - and threw trucky way away from the base.

I decided risking return on wheels alone would be too much, so I built a "flyer" to deliver a new ore tank. It took some tries. KIS-attachment really doesn't take well to clipping. The command seat had to be rebuilt four times. But at last I could pack up a monoprop tank, deliver it to Trucky, and it drove under own power to the container with a brand new reaction wheel.

The base grows nicely, although the Buckboard-3000 full of equipment coming down from the sky at 20m/s was an unwelcome surprise. But oh well, this is KSP. Explosions happen.

 

[Ty Tan Tu]

I CHEATED!!! BIG TIME!!! 

The battery to my ore extractor died (those things take a lot more energy than i thought). So I open up the persistent.sfs file and finally found the VESSEL and the part were the electrical charge was stored. I put the value at the max, which was conveniently referenced two values down, and saved the file. After reloading the saved game, my extractor had enough energy to start drilling again. Maybe I should feel bad, but I am actually proud of myself. I have been meaning to write mods, and basing them on preexisting parts seems like a good place to begin. So, successfully editing the save file was a good start. The fact that the files are plan text really does make it easy..

Edited November 20, 2016 by Ty Tan Tu

[UnusualAttitude]

Bartdon and Mitzon finally reach the Kerbal Face on the surface of... Mars.

This was their final port of call before returning to the shuttle Quissac for the trip back to orbit. 

Vertical take-off...

...and then transition to horizontal flight. 

It took Quissac all of her 4,500 m/s of Delta-vee to get to a 300x300 km orbit. Maps usually give a significantly lower figure (about 3,800 m/s to 200x200). Either I am a really lousy pilot, or the maps need some revision (this is RSS in 1.1.2 by the way).

Things are getting busy around the Laroque crew transfer vehicle. 

[WanderingKid]

Got my Kerbal Orbital Rescue tutorial finalized and edited earlier today, and I finally got around to getting this monster launched to clean up some station contracts around the Kerbin SOI:

40 ton station lifted from a 140 ton Launchpad and 140 part VAB.  That took some engineering and a little luck.  It's currently orbiting Kerbin waiting for it's refueler to catch up with it since I launched way off orbit and it'll take a few days.

Edited November 20, 2016 by WanderingKid

[MaxxQ]

Slightly modified an OPT SSTO (a craft file that came with the mod) to try my hand out at actually flying one, since I've never done it before.  After several attempts at flying it stock, as well as trying out a couple of the other craft files included, I finally decided to do a bit of minor modification (I'll get pics up later - maybe).  Added a fuel tank behind the cockpit and RCS/reaction wheel fuselage section, a pair of canards to get some forward pitch control, threw on a third pair of airbrakes (after moving the original pair of pairs), and added some navigation and spotlights.

The lights were added after the first "successful" flight, when I tried to land on grasslands (western side of the KSC continent) at night and forgot that I could turn on the landing gear lights.  I'll still use those, now that I have it fixed in my head to use them, but I also wanted some nav lights and spots for when she is in space.  Successful is in quotes because while it was a landing everyone walked away from, I lost both main engines and the adapter.  Landing gear held up fine.

Anyway, first time I've ever managed to actually orbit and land a spaceplane, and first time I ever landed ANY kind of aircraft without using parachutes to do the landing for me.  I used to avoid spaceplanes and aircraft in general because I never could get the hang of flying (or landing) the dang things.  So, I'm pretty happy about this.

[The Raging Sandwich]

Minmus 4 (A retry of Minmus 3. An Apollo 9 mission. Launched the lander and the CSM in one launch. The CSM did an Apollo-style docking with the lander, decoupled, and started testing of the lander. Jeb and Loddo transferred to the lander as Jancy stayed behind. The lander flew away from the CSM for about .8 km, flew back, and docked.): Success

ST 1 (The first space telescope. Launched by a Kerbin 1-2 rocket but lost control during the gravity turn into orbit. The booster brought the payload back to the ground only breaking a solar panel of the probe [and the rest of the booster]): Failure

ST 2 (Due to the surviving payload of ST 1, another rocket could be built and the probe was repaired. It was launched flawlessly into a 240x220 km polar orbit. It started looking for potential alternate landing sites for the future space shuttle.): Success

Minmus 5 (The first manned circumlunar flight): Success

Minmus 6 (The first manned lunar orbit flight. Completed 5 orbits of the Mun and returned to Kerbin.): Success

Next launch: Minmus 7 (A test of the lander. It will do an unmanned landing on the Mun, return to the orbiting CSM, and the crew will return home.)

Minmus 4 before reentry

ST 2, the largest and heaviest satellite yet

Minmus 5 Mun flyby

Minmus 5 braking orbit

The first Kerbinrise

The last Kerbinrise of the mission cheers on the crew before escaping the Mun

[DunaRocketeer]

It's a hectic time for my Kerbin Space Station.

- The crew is processing science data in the lab. 

- A utility shuttle is making a routine resupply run. 

- With the Duna transfer window just a week away, a couple of interplanetary vehicles have arrived at the station for refuelling. This is their last port of call before leaving the Kerbin system for over a thousand days.

 

[Triop]

Today's NDE....(*bumped the tower)

guess I'll die another day . . . .

Edited November 21, 2016 by Triop

[Triop]

[Brownhair2]

I decided to download the Mk IV Spaceplane System, but the stock wings are too puny. If someone could recommend a mod with large stock-alike wings, that'd be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, I refueled the Horizon and attached two Waders. Now it's ready to go to Laythe!

Too bad I missed the window. I hope they're ok with waiting for about a year or so...

And yeah that's basically it. I want to do stuff with the Mk IV parts, but until I can find some giant wings I'm not gonna be doing much.

[Starman4308]

Not a huge amount of stuff; downloaded DMagic's science mod; while initially I resisted because it added too many non-stock science parts (theoretically unabalancing the game), I've realized that A, my current save, I already have 90% of the tech tree, and B, future saves I can just knock down the science rewards to 20% or so. Otherwise, mostly just chugging along, launching stuff towards Eve, wondering why some of them explode when I switch to them just as they cross the Kerbin-Kerbol SOI interface, and launching my new outer-planets equi-Kerbin relays*

*The operating hypothesis being that the amount of effort I put into making sure that there's always a relay available to Kerbin in the off chance it's behind the Sun is inversely correlated to the chance that will ever be an issue. These relays are just masses of long-range antennae pointed at every other planet, which will form a triangle with Kerbin.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Starman4308
Added an image of way too many antennae when fully deployed

[JadeOfMaar]

Made a small thing based on what a famous player built on his YouTube stream recently. I held to his trend of avoiding fins/elevons up front (and forgetting parts for yaw control) and compensated for it all with a customary spoiler, then added ARI engines to make it an SSTO. With it I went for nearly a lap around Gael and found an amazing bundle of peaks and plains at 1' N, 1' W. it's a nice design but it's not a long-term practical craft and there are enough of those already.

There was plenty more tooling around after that, with an OPT bundled ship (which I now intend to use to populate bases and stations), and flying another impractical, racing-only SSTO just to remember how to use it properly. I succeeded at that, then I went to far or too fast and the cockpit melted, killing kerbals.

...

F9

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

What a long, strange trip it's been. But after many years and hundreds of kilometers, for my rover crew the journey is finally nearing it's end.

 

Spoiler

 

They've witnessed incredible vistas...

Seen astounding sights...

Watched the sun rise and set over and over again on an alien world...

Weathered howling dust storms...

Treacherous terrain...

And rocks. Lots and lots of rocks...

There was also that time Sigina Kerman...

...well, they all agreed it was best if they never mentioned that again.

And not only have they survived this harrowing odd odyy odyssss schlep, but the crew grew from four to six, picking up two extra mouths to feed lost souls along the way. But today, at long last, the end is in sight...

(it's that bright pixel. Probably.)

Somewhere high above, after waiting in orbit for years, the return ship has already begin it's descent down into the slightly thicker air of the Midland Sea.

It manages to find a mostly flat hill, and sets down gently with a touch of engine.

The rover arrives not long after. The crew wastes no time ripping open the storage bins to raid them for snacks, only to discover them completely filled with old Christmas fruitcakes.

 

One last task remains: before the crew can leave, first they must tear apart their own rescue ship in order to rebuild it.

[Clipperride]

@CatastrophicFailure Very nice achievement.  Gotta love those "because it's there" missions

Mun Rover Lab - I fear my own Munar Treck may be close to the end.  The doomed return vessel is now less than 40km away, but there are some pretty big craters in the way.  I'm going to end when i) the distance of the detour needed to advance is longer than the remaining distance to the lander and ii) There's still a decent landing spot for the replacement return vessel.  

[loch.ness]

A here a quick and dirty Proton rocket launched off from the KSC carrying the first piece of my next leisure time project in LKO.

The proton sailed effortlessly off the pad into its gravity turn.  SAS was needed for a short time following stage 1 seperation to keep things stable after which command disabled it and allowed the mission to continue on its own.

Upon reaching the target ~150x150 orbit the payload was released and the rocket burned retrograde enough to fall back into the atmosphere leaving behind its payload.

Zarya was feeling a bit lonely however and I had a bit more time tonight than I'd expected.  Using @Naito's STS Resolution (I've built shuttles a couple of times but I've never worked out the voodoo of balancing them for re-entry or RCS and while I eventually plan to reverse engineer this bad boy its just too perfect not to use for now) I set up a second launch.  Below you can see the original four piloting the STS-Endeavor.

I'm not used to flying the shuttle and getting the roll right took a few tries.  eventually we made it into orbit and switched the the OMS for rendezvous.  Between burns we took a moment to inspect the cargo.

Unity is the plumbing hub so I elected to construct it out of containers for monoprop, electric charge, and life support.  While there should be crewed compartments I elected to take a different route.  The docking attempt didn't work very well since I was using @RoverDude's Konstruction docking port (Testing them out for the first time) on unity and it didn't want to play nice with the normal docking port on the STS-Endeavor.  Could have just been my issue since the little RCS tug was terribly off balance and I've never tried docking the shuttle before.  I got them to line up pretty well a few times but they just wouldn't click.

 

Happily Zarya and Unity has the ability to meet up thanks to Zarya's own RCS systems and Unity's tug.

Some useful lessons learned for the future.  Still need to bring Endeavour back down and land her before I start working on Zvedzda which is the life support hub.  I'll want to see how my USI LS parts mesh into that build.

[KingPhantom]

i'm in a new save. science only with some harder settings (just ksc for connection... kerbal leveling... and some of the heavier settings you can set).

so i launched my first keostationary network. to connect my mun-landers with the ksc. i did my calulations wrong for 4 satellites..... so i now have a trapezoid shape. but this will work also

have to update it anyway when i unlock the best relaydishes...

 

but was funny

[Martian Emigrant]

Good day Kerbolics.

Not much to report for the last few days.

Still in my end-of-game-Career-plan.

http://imgur.com/a/UrTfs

Now that the tech-tree is full I am repatriating my Kerbals. No Kerbals left behind.

The Kerbin and Mun Labs were first now it's the last 3.

The first of the last was the first Minmus Surface Lab.

It's older with modest science, no ISRU and no lifeboat.

Followed by the latest model from the other side of Minmus.

Having a full tank (IRSU) it did the manoeuvring to meet the other.

From there the Scientist "Walked" to itch a ride home in their lifeboats.

Once back to Kerbin they used said Lifeboats.

Jeb went up to get the remaining two.

But due to a planning error the lab ended in a perilous orbit. The scientist had to "Space" themselves to a higher, rounder, orbit and wait for Jeb.

The rest is routine.

One lab, two scientist to go. The Minus Orbital lab. Same exact model as the last Minmus surface lab. Orbiting on the very edge of the SOI.

This one was straight playbook.

All my Kerbals are back on Kerbin.

So.... Now what?

I am going to upgrade them all to 5 stars (Travel involved). Then they can be retired (Dismissed) with full pay.

And then what?

I have never done a science oriented game. I do that.....And play at other things of course.

 

ME

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[monstah]

Started working on my first mod. I have this list of ideas, and I picked the simplest.

I hit a wall when I found out that all the information I need is in private members.  

Then I went on to research how to implement my second simplest idea. Turns out there's a mod (and a great one, too, I used to have it installed before 1.2) that does it already (I don't remember it having that function before, tho).

Then I turned to my final mod idea... and that's more complex and I don't feel like doing the necessary homework at the moment. To the bottom of the drawer it goes! ...now I'm back to never having made a mod. *sigh*

[JadeOfMaar]

11 hours ago, Brownhair2 said:

I decided to download the Mk IV Spaceplane System, but the stock wings are too puny. If someone could recommend a mod with large stock-alike wings, that'd be greatly appreciated.

Mk3 Stockalike Expansion has you covered. It adds Big S wing segments. I don't remember or never minded but, if you still use KSP 1.1.x you can add a Procedural Wings mod too.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go) Friday began at the Munport space station, shuffling Kerbals around the four habitable craft docked at the station according to plan and re-balancing resources as needed for the twin landings of the Spamcan 7 and Spamcan 7a landers. With everyone in place, Spamcan 7a undocked from the station and began its descent with four tourists aboard:

Spamcan 7a's deorbit burn

Wound up coming down on a ten degree slope in the Midlands and started to tip over, so the craft's visit to the surface was just long enough for the four contracts to be counted. Spamcan 7a then successfully returned to the station, after which it was time for the smaller Spamcan 7 to make its descent with another pair of tourists:

Spamcan 7 preparing for landing

Spamcan 7's landing and retrieval took several tries to get right, admittedly. The craft is better suited for Minmus than Mün - and I think that as soon as I can cobble together a craft capable of doing the job, I'll move it out there.

The six tourists having made their trips to the surface and back were then loaded aboard the ferries Strange Cargo and Next Objective (both docked at Munport) for the return to Kerbin. Strange Cargo departed first, with Next Objective leaving half an hour later. 

Strange Cargo departing Munport

While both craft were en route to Kerbin, I went ahead and sent the Bill Clinton 7a long-range grabber probe onto Minmus, with a mission to rendezvous and rescue Kerbal and craft from the moon's orbit.

With both craft having been refueled to 2/3 capacity by the Old Bessie 7 fuel delivery craft prior to their departure, powered aerobraking maneuvers were made to put them back around Kerbin; both craft were in low orbits after their respective third passes. I had to circularize Strange Cargo to prevent it making another pass while Next Objective was doing her second aerobraking maneuver...

Next Objective aerobraking, with Strange Cargo staying just above the atmosphere nearby.

Strange Cargo had been deliberately loaded with a group of tourists whose contracts were effectively completed, so an Auk II passenger drone plane was launched to rendezvous with the craft and bring them all back down. Rendezvous and landing were successful, clearing three tourist contracts in the process and bringing my coffers up to √890k, still √30k short of having enough funding to launch the Piper Alpha 7 refinery craft to Mün, which was my goal for the week. Checking replacement contracts, I picked up a Kerbin orbital science contract, another 2-Kerbal contract for Mün orbit, and a satellite adjustment contract. The Kerbin sci and sat adjustments were easily done, with one of those replacements being a fast parts test contract; I made up the √30k pretty fast. After picking up a Mün surface science, LKO rescue and Minmus outpost contracts, Piper Alpha 7 was launched with engineer Paphe aboard. Like Old Bessie, the craft's fairing gave me issues and I wound up launching without one, and the launch was successful despite the increased drag.

Piper Alpha 7 in orbit with final booster stage preparing to separate.

Piper Alpha was sent to the landing site of the earlier Wildcat 7 outpost, which had proven to be reasonably ore-rich. She landed 700 meters from Wildcat and operations commenced at once, filling all of her storage tanks up in just a few short hours, clearing a contract to mine ore from Mün in the process. Wildcat herself was used to clear the Münar surface science contract. A contract to adjust another satellite was picked up before I called it quits for the day.

And that was all Friday.

With Piper Alpha in place, Old Bessie was sent down first thing on Saturday for a precision landing at Piper Alpha to refuel and then bring up a load of fuel for Spamcan 7a still at Munport, all of which was successful (admittedly, Old Bessie's landing took a few tries, but that's why the craft was designed with excessive delta-V in the first place). Four tourists that had been left at Munport following the departure of Strange Cargo and Next Objective made landings on the Mün in the Spamcan in the Canyons - not a place you should send tourists, incidentally. As with its prior flight, the Spamcan stayed just long enough for the contracts to be counted and had to launch before the craft had a chance to tip over. After the craft's successful return to Munport, an Auk III medium-capacity refuel plane was launched to rendezvous with Next Objective in LKO, with that craft deliberately loaded with Minmus-bound tourists prior to its earlier departure from Munport. Rendezvous and docking were successful, and with the craft fully refueled, Next Objective made a burn to go to the minty moon, where it will arrive in another 14 days. I then adjusted the orbit of the Beep-Beep 7c probe for contract.

Yesterday was spent on spaceplane shenanigans of various types. The Auk III sent to refuel Next Objective was landed, but she completely overshot the Runway and had to double back and wound up overshooting the Runway again, finally coming down about 700 meters off Runway 27. I'm just glad the craft didn't wind up in the water, honestly. A second Auk III was launched to rendezvous and refuel Strange Cargo - launch and docking were successful, but I utterly botched the re-entry burn; I had failed to return the craft's point of control to its drone core prior to the burn, instead leaving it at its docking port, and the craft wound up coming down in Grasslands completely on the opposite side of Kerbin (and I'd quick-saved just after completing the burn - before realizing my error - so I couldn't correct it). Landing was successful at least but I only got a 41% return on the parts and took a pretty substantial financial hit for the mission as a result. Next up was the flight of an Auk I rescue plane, which I decided to do since I had two LKO rescue contracts. A double-rescue mission was affected, with launch, rendezvous and recovery of both Kerbals successful. Landing was once again eventful; I wound up bouncing the plane on the Runway, then coming down hard and tearing off both engines and the starboard wing before coming to a stop. Obviously, landing is something I need to work on. I picked up a VIP contract for a Mün flyby; with three Kerbals at KSC headed to Mün and four tourists at Mün ready to head back to Kerbin, the three KSC Münbound travelers were loaded aboard an Auk II plane and launched to rendezvous with Strange Cargo; rendezvous and docking were successful. Today I'll be sending Strange Cargo on its way, and I'll try to have better luck landing the Auk II...

[justidutch]

FInally, after a few weeks, my KSP kareer got some much-needed love, though only a little bit.  This real-life crap keeps getting in the way...

Just one simple mission to fulfill three simple contracts: land on Minmus, plant a flag there, and pick up a hitchhiker orbiting the mint moon.  The engineers devised a craft that could bring along a few extraneous crew members so they could gain experience, and included all the science experiments they could muster up.  Those new big long SRBs the scientists recently discovered sure are handy!

 

Liftoff went very smoothly, the first set of four SRBs at full throttle ran out of fuel and were dropped around 10km up.  The second set at 65% throttle dropped around 17km,  and the Skipper engine took the ship into a stable 80km orbit.

The pilot then matched inclinations with Minmus, plotted a course and burned for the target.  This stage ran out of fuel shortly into the burn, the big tank separated, and the ship was now on its own to complete the transfer burn with its Poodle engine.

The hitchhiker orbiting about 450km above the moon was rendezvoused with flawlessly, though Bob forgot to get out and record the event with his camera.  Bob will get a stern talking to and perhaps be banished to snack-wrapper cleaner-upper duty from here on in.  The crew then brought the ship into a very tight orbit, only 15 km above the surface so they could do successive EVA reports; this was the first close encounter with the surface in history, so they took the time to do it right.  Then, after picking their spot (one of the big flat surfaces that looked deliciously enticing), the craft gently touched down.  

 

The crew looked up in wonder at their home planet and Mün, giving thanks to the folks back home who made this mission possible, and also to their deity, the Big Vending Machine In The Sky.

After the crew loitered around long enough and performed all the science experiments they could, they returned home.  They didn't even need to aerobrake, having enough fuel in the landing leg tanks to circularize around Kerbin at about 120km, before dropping them and dipping into the atmosphere to splash down in the ocean, though not as close to KSC as hoped for.

Enough was returned from the various experiments so that the scientists dreamt up various new technologies.  And, the entire team is excited that the higher ups have accepted a mission to begin exploring Duna.  Plans to send a probe are afoot, though there is some slight consideration to just going ahead with a kerballed mission..

Edited November 21, 2016 by justidutch