What did you do in KSP1 today?

[CatastrophicFailure]

Meanwhile, back on Duna, after a night of conspicuous consumption of consanguine fruitcakes, Mito Kerman gets kicked out to begin construction. First task is to set up the gantry...

Spoiler

 

Now, let's get rid of these upper fuel tanks...

Climb back down and... crap...

Crap!

Crap!

Whew, it missed the rover. Waitaminnit, Mito!

*Crunch*

Mito...?

...Mito?? 

Don't worry, folks, she's ok. Kerbals have very hard heads.

Now, on to more serious business. Time to disassemble the crucial pieces to be returned from the rover. I may have, purely for practicality's sake, edit the KIS .cfg so one Kerbal can Years unprotected on the harsh surface of Duna, exposed to ionizing radiation and cosmic rays, have granted Mito Kerman the super strenght of ten Kerbals! She can just move stuff with her mind, OK?

Securing the precious 63 non-transmitted science results from biomes all over Duna...

Finally, the trailer's work is done.

Now, we need to disassemble the Rover to cannibalize... crap...

(note to self, don't say "cannibalize" out loud around the victim Rover anymore...)

It's ok, nothing broken, it's, er, supposed to be bent and upside-down like that. They were all still wearing their seatbelts. Yes, my license is expired, why do you...? Oh. Oy, there goes my insurance...

SO, um, erherm, Mito just needs to pop the Hitchhiker into place...

Then the lab, radiator, and an antenna for comms. Skipper bolted firmly to the proper end.

There's some fuel left in this tank, might still be useful. Plus, improves aesthetic efficiency by at least 23.5%.

ALL ABOARD! Maybe shoulda put a ladder here....

CLEAR GANTRY! Or just close the cargo bays and knock it over, whatever blows your skirt up, Mito. OW! what was that for?? Oh...

Finally...FINALLY! After more than 10 years, hundreds of Kilometers, and some really awful fruitcake, Duna control, WE HAVE LIFTOFF!

What do you mean, fine for littering? It's fine, right? Oh, that kind of fine. Um, oh..

Literally built from parts found lying on the side of the road, now arcing high into the Dunian sky...

Dumping the drop tanks... and all that fruitcake... someone get a sponge...

Safely in orbit, now to wait 180 days until the Kerbin return window, and hope they don't all burn up on re-entry. And all thanks to Mito! In recognition, the crew have composed this ballad in her honor...

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO lives in a cabinet under the sink?

MI-TO-KER-MAN!

She's radioactive and boy, does she stink!

MI-TO-KER-MAN!

Found in a hulk by the side of the road!

MI-TO-KER-MAN!

She builds like a champ, but looks like a toad!

MI-TO-KER-MAN!

MI-TO-KER-MAN, MI-TO-KER-MAN, MI-TO KER-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

 

So, um, after several years in anaerobic storage, that fruitcake might have fermented juuuuuust a tiny bit.....

Edited November 22, 2016 by CatastrophicFailure
20-some-odd pics... better spoilerize that...

[Sharpy]

4 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

and hope they don't all burn up on re-entry.

 

Rotate the wings 90 degrees. Also, open cargo bay doors.

You DO have parachutes?

 

[Wallygator]

I finally remembered to make this post about a thing that reminded be about KSP

Oh, and once back from holiday, I restarted my 1.1.3 sandbox.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Wallygator

[linuxgurugamer]

On 11/4/2016 at 11:39 PM, parameciumkid said:

TIL: ayan4m1's fork of Kronal Vessel Viewer loads up in KSP 1.2.1... but doesn't exactly work...

Try this:

 

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go) With my main save game transferred back onto my home desktop over the weekend, I didn't get a whole lot accomplished yesterday. I did build a practice target in my litterbox for the Auk VI ore hauling spaceplane, testing to see if the plane could return safely to Kerbin's surface with a full load of mined ore. Realized that I didn't design the Auk VI with RCS capabilities and neither did the target, so that target got scrapped awful fast. The new target has rendezvoused with the Auk at this point but I have yet to try to bring it into dock. If I get a chance today, I'll try to finish up this testing - it'd be nice to know if the Auk VI will work if I ever need it to do its intended job. I might also want to break down and put some RCS on the thing...

In my main save game, I sent Jeb and Strange Cargo onto Mün with three tourists aboard. The job there is to meet up with the Munport space station, let one of the three go down to the surface for contract, then haul them and four other tourists currently at the station back to Kerbin, closing out all of my current extant Mün-related contracts. With passengers on the way, Old Bessie 7 was dispatched from Munport to the Piper Alpha 7 ore refinery site to bring back another tank of gas for Spamcan 7 and Strange Cargo's arrival. I'm not certain that I won't need to make another fuel trip specifically for Strange Cargo; it's certainly doable, with only the precision landing as the difficult part. The Auk II ferry plane that brought the three passengers to Strange Cargo was also landed. I decided that I would use NavUtilities for gross guidance and then use the old visual marker system for the final approach and landing, since that's how I used to handle landings prior to installing NavUtilities (the whole notion of "go with what you know"). Plane came in okay, and it would've probably been a smoother landing had I not been going off the approach data for KSC 27 instead of KSC 09 like I should've been. Realized my error in time and didn't overshoot the Runway, though the final landing could've been a little better - I landed on the far left.

I picked up a contract to do some EVA checking in the vicinity of the Bates Motel 7 outpost on Minmus. With Ziggy aboard awaiting retrieval for contract, it fell to Edner to do the contract, which was made all the more interesting by the fact that Bates Motel was still sliding down the hill from its initial landing - there's a 32-degree slope slope in the vicinity of the outpost. Wound up hitting all four nav points and ran out of EVA fuel about a hundred meters from the outpost; Edner did slide a bit but was otherwise okay, and made his way back to the outpost on foot.

Would've done more, but my oldest was watching and I had to shut the game off to get him to go to bed...

Edited November 22, 2016 by capi3101

[Big Kerbie]

Decided to get mods for 1.2. And then restart my career game. Things are where I want them for now. I'll probably add a few visual effects later when they update. But I'll go with what I have now.

First mission: Gather science from Kerbin and Launch first vessel. Success! Jeb took the Alley Cat Mk1to 5000m.

Second mission: Haul Command Pod Mk1 into flight and test the Mk16 at a specific altitude and speed. Partial success. Val took the Alley Cat Mk1-A up to 5000m but didn't make to speed and altitude specifics for the contract. We did bring back much more science this time.

Tomorrow, we will work on getting that contract with another launch, and perhaps another.

[SSgt Baloo]

Sometimes, when I go to the space complex view, I discover that the tide has come in.

Way in:

I only just figured out today that if I zoom in, I can get "under" the water and see the buildings.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Crashed

Crashed

And crashed some more

 

Spoiler

By the way, did I mention I crashed?

 

[Brownhair2]

@EpicSpaceTroll139 Are you running x64 bit? I used to crash all the time when I was running x32 bit.

 

Decided to try out my new lander on Aptur. Daphlinne got out to plant the flag and open the service bay:

What's inside the service bay?

A rover!

Tanald also got out to help copilot, and to shut the bay behind Daphlinne.

And then I immediately flipped it over. Oops.

And that's why we have quicksaves.

After driving it around a little bit, Daphlinne and Tanald hopped back into the pod to wait until night. This time Franalla got to copilot

Almost flipped it over two more times, but I managed to save it both times. All in all I'd say this was a successful test drive.

...Except now I've broken Aptur too...

Let's check one of my satellites... yep, definitely broken. I can see Kerbin through Aptur

I know it's dark, but trust me.

Wait a minute... I've seen this before...

Yup, Eli's broken too

I wonder how long it'll take for me to break the entire solar system

Edited November 23, 2016 by Brownhair2

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

15 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

@EpicSpaceTroll139 Are you running x64 bit? I used to crash all the time when I was running x32 bit.

I'm running 64 bit here.

My problem is a combination of using 1.2.1 (which for some reason is less stable than 1.2.0 for me) and that I'm playing with DMP.

Also: nice compact rover. If it's flipped over you could always try ramming it with a kerbal using the jetpack. I find that to quite often be enough to flip a light rover over on low gravity worlds like the Mun.

Edited November 22, 2016 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[TheEpicSquared]

21 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

I'm running 64 bit here.

My problem is a combination of using 1.2.1 (which for some reason is less stable than 1.2.0 for me) and that I'm playing with DMP.

Also: nice compact rover. If it's flipped over you could always try ramming it with a kerbal using the jetpack. I find that to quite often be enough to flip a light rover over on low gravity worlds like the Mun.

I just slap on a reaction wheel. Disable it when driving around, enable it when you flip. Works every time  

[Brownhair2]

3 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

If it's flipped over you could always try ramming it with a kerbal using the jetpack. I find that to quite often be enough to flip a light rover over on low gravity worlds like the Mun.

I tried to do that, but I just decided quicksaves were easier.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Brownhair2

[ROXunreal]

Phase 1 my Minmus Base is operational!.....uuum.....barely.....pathetically......actually it's a wonder I managed to salvage this mission and not kill the crew...twice.

 

The mission requires a base with 15 Kerbal capacity and also three scientists and a whooping 1500 monopropellant on board.

The core module was launched by an automatic craft and had a 10 Kerbal capacity and the required monopropellant, although half of it was used up in the landing (done exclusively by linear RCS thrusters) and for moving the base 300 meters once landed.

Next we launched and landed the life support and power module on a crewed mission. The station wasn't to be inhabited yet but the crew needed some experience, and what's better than experience with a base that you won't have experience in? The landing was imprecise and the life support module landed 300 meters from the core module. The crew returned to Kerbin.

Finally, we launched this terrifically plausible rocket:

 

And Karry was really confident in its sound design, as can be seen by the expression on that beautiful cylinder of her face

 

Hidden within was this compact gem

 

The Base Assembly Vehicle, and an Orb habitat module already attached to it.

But there was a slight problem on the way to Minmus. We totally miscalculated the life support supplies. There wasn't enough to even reach the little green rock before everyone would die.

So we corrected the burn, made it more direct, and much faster. Mission control said that we would now have "a bit" of life support left after reaching Minmus. This solved the problem! Of food, oxygen and water. Not the problem of fuel, which it created.

We had to use the landing stage to deorbit from Minmus. Oh and by the way, the 8x Twitch engine landing stage was a terrible idea. I really hate that little engine, I feel it's horribly inefficient. I love the Spark but hate its radial cousin. I hope it....twitches....to death! Or something.

We didn't have enough fuel in the landing stage to actually land. Um...does this make the landing stage the half-landing stage then? The aim-for-landing-site-and-slow-down-a-bit stage?

In any case, once it was dry, we were only left with the LV-909 to save the day. Too bad it was pointed 180 degrees away from where we needed it.

And thus the pod's return-to-Kerbin stage became the landing stage, and the crew will be stranded on Minmus until someone else arrives. But it's ok since we planned for them to stay anyway. Or is it really ok? Read on...

This landing was amazing...sigh. With very limited fuel and pointing the wrong way until the last 50 meters, then quickly tilting around and trying to land vertically on all six wheels in Minmus gravity, battling the lying navball that showed no lateral motion while there was indeed some. Or was it eight wheels? I have no idea, I haven't stopped drinking since this mission.

We never crashed 14 times before landing properly. I mean we did, but it was in simulaaaaations back at KSC, riiiiight, I almost forgot...

We landed five kilometers from the base modules. Life support supplies were kind of critical. Good thing that the Base Assembly Vehicle proved to be reliable and easy to handle, with its front probe core tilted the wrong way so that the navball horizon was vertical and steering completely off, traction terrible and all wheels not properly aligned with the ground because of VAB symmetry issues (yeah thanks VAB).

The one thing that worked was the one thing I had worried about - the docking ports of all modules were properly aligned, and it was easy to connect them to each other and to the scaffolding with whee...I mean the Base Assembly Vehicle.

Here we approach the life support module of the base, and a rocket stage from the previous flight that had the nerve to not blow up and now litters our beautiful Lesser Flats. The pod hitched a ride with the Base Assembly Vehicle because, well, it was out of fuel, and the Vehicle was heading for the life support module. Where there's, yunno, eating and drinking and breathing, which we craved desperately. The Base Assembly Vehicle was supposed to operate autonomously via comm link with KSC.

 

OH SWEET NECTAR OF ABUNDANCE. Quick! Picture without F2, picture without F2!

 

Finally saved, we assembled the base with ease.

 

It was great to almost die but not die and complete the mission. Only we didn't complete it because the base still didn't have a 15 Kerbal capacity but 12, the pod was supposed to provide the final three but we dropped it nearby where it remains without fuel. And monopropellant tanks need to be refilled before the mission can succeed.

Did I say we were safe from dying? Well uum, that's wrong. Night came. It was so cozy with the lights on, that's why we at KSC build bases and stations, because they're cozy places in the cold and dark and vacuum, and also glow nicely.

Look how cozy it is!

 

In fact, it's so cozy that the lights could turn off at any moment and everyone could suffocate. Because there aren't enough batteries to make it through the long night on Minmus. Simulations that we ran showed the power running out and crew dying literally minutes before sunrise! Hm what to do, what to do?

After trying out the methods of hysterical crying, praying to the Kraken God, lighting Minmus dust on fire and hugging the life support module, we finally made that atrocious excuse for a vehicle dock with the base. It had an extra battery on it, and then we turned off the probe cores and antennas. And the lights. This was enough to make it through the night, otherwise everyone would be dead as no help could get to them in time.

But it wasn't cozy anymore. It was complete darkness. Four Kerbals in complete darkness for days and days and days. They can still hear the voices. The voice. Of Minmus. The voice of Minmus, talking to them. "Eat me!" it said. "I'm made of candy. No internal bleeding from my sweet crystals I swear!....hey I have an idea, how about you turn off the oxygen recycling system? .......come on, it'll be fun!" The crew wished it had died. And many more long nights await before the next mission that will finally bring the monopropellant, the mining equipment and ISRU units....And batteries. Lots and lots of batteries. Also some antipsychotic medicine.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2016 by ROXunreal

[Odonian]

Today I managed to destroy the VAB with a booster accidentally shot from the launchpad.

Whoops.

[SSgt Baloo]

3 minutes ago, Odonian said:

Today I managed to destroy the VAB with a booster accidentally shot from the launchpad.

Whoops.

 

Do we have a Wile E. Coyote award? Because I believe this deserves one.

[Brownhair2]

So after reinstalling New Horizons and Kopernicus, it seems I have fixed Aptur and Titanus (and probably Eli, but I haven't actually checked.) So I'll try not to break them again. They're already broken again. So it looks like it's good for one flight before it re-breaks.

Anyway, one of the main reasons I came back to KSP was to see if 1.2 fixed the Emerald's front landing gear. And then I abandoned it on the surface of Serran for 13 years.

In my defense, the mining equipment is really slow. Which isn't helped by the lack of power sources (only an RTG and four puny 1x6 solar panels). It only just recently had enough fuel to return.

Anyway, I finally brought it back.

Is it just me, or did they increase the heat tolerance of the Mk 2 parts? It feels like I can pull off much more aggressive aerobraking. Maybe I'm just better at handling re-entry.

Landing went smoothly. I wish all of my landings were that easy...

And then I attached two Waders to the Amber. Now it's ready to accompany the Horizon to Laythe!

[Monkey Taylor]

Just got into the best orbit ever! 74 505 AP , 74 463 PE! And I just made it 145,000 AP and 72,000 PE by accidentally pressing [Z] 

[Benji13]

I got a new laptop! No, not in the game. In real life. A Metabox Alpha N170RD1 with Intel i7, 16gb RAM, GTX 960M with 2gb VRAM, 17" HD screen and 254gb SSD for anyone interested. Runs every graphics setting on full with Scatterer, SVE, SVT and Engine Lighting very smoothly. Now I'm just waiting on FAR and KCT before beginning a new career save. 

Edited November 23, 2016 by Benji13

[Dafni]

2 minutes ago, Benji13 said:

I got a new laptop! No, not in the game. In real life. A Metabox Alpha N170RD1 with Intel i7, 16gb RAM, GTX 600M with 2gb VRAM, 17" HD screen and 254gb SSD for anyone interested. Runs every graphics setting on full with Scatterer, SVE, SVT and Engine Lighting very smoothly.

Congratulations! But wait, I have the exact same specs here, only difference my GTX is a 860M, and Scatterer can definitely give me a yellow timer a lot of the times. What might explain this difference? Do you have any idea?

Thanks

[Benji13]

13 minutes ago, Dafni said:

Congratulations! But wait, I have the exact same specs here, only difference my GTX is a 860M, and Scatterer can definitely give me a yellow timer a lot of the times. What might explain this difference? Do you have any idea?

Thanks

Oops, sorry. I meant to type GTX 960M. That would explain it. 

[Sharpy]

15 hours ago, TheEpicSquared said:

I just slap on a reaction wheel. Disable it when driving around, enable it when you flip. Works every time  

Absolutely not.

Ruggedized wheels, low CoM but good clearance on the bottom, friction to 3 or higher, rear higher than front, brakes 200 rear, 150 front, traction default, steering front, motor all. Keep the reaction wheel running, and pretty strong. Set SAS to prograde. Decouple steering keys from rotation keys. Keep your fingers on Q/E to right your rover mid-flight if it starts flipping; SAS will point it safely forward for you. Turn gently.

Circumnavigation of Minmus in one evening, running at 4x phys warp; happily traveling at 50m/s over Mun at 2x phys-warp. All the way around Duna, 17m/s 3x phys-warp. Slowing down only when approaching steep changes of incline to avoid extreme jumps or crashing into walls.

[Big Kerbie]

Well, a few mods happened to get minor updates and tweaks, so replaced out dated mods with fresh current ones.

Then, back to launches!

Mission 3: still working on getting data from a Mk16 parachute test as well as now a test of the swivel engine at 45000 meters at a fairy slow speed. Built and launched Thundercat Mk1 a half liquid fuel and half solid booster with quite a bit of science experiments in board. Thanks to me putting the Scientist in charge of flying, the mission was aborted shortly after solid booster burnout. He could not control the craft burning the swivel. Partial success. Got the parachute contract but failed the swivel test. Also noted, not enough parachute capability, lost the science package on landing.

Mission 4: test the swivel engine at altitude at a specific speed. Nearly identical Thundercat Mk1-A with a few tweaks to fins and thrust limits plus more chutes. Put the Engineer in the capsule. Again, mission abort at solid booster cutout and limited liquid engine firing. Control could not be maintained. Recovered vessel, crew, and science package.

Tomorrow's launch's will probably need a fully liquid fueled rocket to accomplish the contract goals. And pilots.

[loch.ness]

While no pictures of the actual mission (because it was quite boring) here is the STS crew on final approach after installing the Z-1 Truss adapter for the solar array on my growing station.

 

Realizing that I would soon need one, I took a break from STS missions and built a Soyuz.  It currently only seats 2 but I'm thinking of ways to fit in the third seat.  Well, technically it fits 4 on the way up but only 2 on the way down.

 I'm using Porkjet's Orbital Orb for the orbital instruments module.  It works very well for LKO operation but likely won't see use beyond seeing as it lacks USI habitation modifiers (there is no update for this part anywhere I've found yet).  I also hired a set of new kerbonauts to train up as I progress onto station construction.

The quick orbital test concluded with a reentry test which was very smooth.  I need to turn around the decoupler on the orbital module but otherwise it worked flawlessly on the first go.

I capped off the night with a night-time launch of the next part of the station Truss, the part containing the larger radiators.  I got a surprise moment of beauty during the flight.

I had to sign off for tonight before installing the truss.  Endeavour is shown below approaching the station at 10cm/s.  The crew are novices and the engineers are aware that they might have to do some assembly on the station's Truss KAS style to get the radiator's rotation correct.  This will serve as an important test for when they need to do the same thin to get the solar assembly in place as its doesn't fit in my cargo bay fully assembled.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go) Spent all day yesterday doing test mission flights of the Auk VI ore-delivery SSTO spaceplane. All I can say is that I royally fubared this design. Did a total of four test flights yesterday after adding rudimentary RCS capabilities to the craft. On the first, I discovered I'd pigeon-toed the landing gear and got the deflections on the flaps and spoilers backwards (had flaps at 85 degrees deflection and spoilers at 15), and not all the action groups had been staged corrected. Despite this, the plane made orbit alright and affected an orbital rendezvous and cargo transfer only to run out of fuel in the de-orbit burn. I did the best I could to get the plane's periapsis down on RCS but by the time it reached atmospheric interface it was only at 45k, and I overshot the space center by 450 kilometers to the next continent over. I had problems keeping the nose up and burned off the airspike (a Communotron 16 attached to the front end of an Avionics hub) before entry was complete, and then the landing zone wasn't exactly flat - wound up bouncing hard enough to blow two of the ore tanks and detach the third from the plane along with its RCS supply, this despite the fact that all of the above were safely ensconced in a cargo bay. Came to the conclusion that I had overloaded the plane with too much RCS. 

Second flight reduced the RCS and made the tweaks I needed to the plane's action groups and control surfaces. Came to the determination that I was still didn't have sufficient fuel to affect a successful rendezvous and recovery. Third flight, I tried adjusting my ascent profile. Same result. Rechecked my calculations for fuel for the number of engines the craft had and came to the determination that I had assumed the plane would have a much higher mass than it did, so it could handle a bigger fuel load. Changed the fuel to what I would load onto a seven-RAPIER plane, and finally made it to orbit with sufficient fuel after rendezvous and docking to de-orbit normally. Which brought me to the final problem - once in atmosphere, I couldn't keep my nose above twenty-degrees above the horizon, and this with Atmosphere Autopilot helping me out. Overshot KSC by 300 kilometers and wound up ditching the plane trying to fly back. In the post-crash analysis I came to the determination that the positioning of the ore tanks shifted the CoM far enough forward to induce lawn dart behavior when they were full. Today I'll try increasing the deflection limits of my pitching surfaces and adding another large SAS wheel, and I'll consider adding more liquid fuel; I still haven't reached the theoretical maximum acceptable takeoff mass for six RAPIERS just yet and another tonne or two of gas might make a difference. If those changes don't work, I'm looking at a fuselage change, always a gigantic pain but you gotta do what you gotta do...

So yeah, putting in a lot of work for a plane I may or may not wind up ever needing. There's a reason why Squad included a sandbox mode, y'all, and it's called....uh, the design process, I guess. I mean, Career Mode wasn't around until 0.22 or something like that, IIRC......

[Guest]

More shuttle. I may have some form of the spaceplane bug.

 

The final vehicle is designed for crew transfer.

 

Next I will attempt a Mk4 TSTO, but it will probably take longer.

 

9 hours ago, Brownhair2 said:

Is it just me, or did they increase the heat tolerance of the Mk 2 parts? It feels like I can pull off much more aggressive aerobraking. Maybe I'm just better at handling re-entry.

Not directly — apparently the adjustments to aerodynamics in 1.2 made plane parts more survivable.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Guest