What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Fearless Son]

On 12/27/2016 at 2:31 PM, Halfdan said:

landing in a low gravity environment with thin athmosphere is.... interessting to say the least, airbreaks are VERY usefull but i sometimes hat to perform sort of a drift to retrograde and throttle the engines to full

I find it often helpful to set the flaps to toggle full extension when the breaks are engaged.  This might not be the same as a dedicated airbreak, but it does help force the nose up without actually having to change the direction of flight, as well as helping to reduce airspeed.  Fly level and low over your landing surface, engage the flaps, and watch as the craft gently lowers to a touchdown.  

[Mjarf]

Welp, during a routine science mission to the Mun I managed to get Jeb stranded, the lander crashed into the surface because I decelerated too late. Luckily the command pod and Jeb survived somehow so at least he didn't have to freeze his green butt off while waiting for a rescue mission. He had to wait quite a bit though as I managed to crash the rescue craft too, luckily it was unmanned. The second rescue craft survived the trip and now Jeb is licking his wounds at the KSC. He's definitely earned a vacation now, time for Valentina to stretch her legs.

Jeb on his way down to the Mun, minutes later the lander crashed:

Luckily both Jeb and the command pod survived so at least he didn't have to sleep outside:

The unmanned remote controlled lander sent to rescue him, an older more reliable design:

It landed relatively close so it was just a short RCS flight away:

"I can't wait to get my feet back on Kerbin":

Refueling at the Yggdrasil science station in Mun orbit before heading home to Kerbin:

"Ah, good to be back on Kerbin, time for a vacation":

Edited December 29, 2016 by Mjarf

[The Raging Sandwich]

STS-10 completed its rendezvous with KerbinLab 2. It released Truss B about 25 meters away from the station and the truss docked remotely. The shuttle then docked to the Orion module to take the excess monoprop from Truss B, jettisoned it, and landed back in the desert. It came down with its nose pointed downwards and had less than a perfect landing, but everyone survived. The next shuttle mission STS-10b will be delayed for repairs.

Duna Orbiter 2 arrived at Duna. It completed a flyby of Ike but that wouldn't allow it to enter Duna orbit. It then set a course to do an aerobrake (what Duna Orbiter 2 was to test) but still failed to reach orbit. It was close, but not quite.

Transit 13 (A Minmus-based relay system. Included an orbiter and two landers. The orbiter is for communicating long distances with deep-space probes. The two landers landed on two opposite sides of Minmus for future missions to the moon and for probes leaving the Kerbin system.): Success

Transit 13 L1 (Landed on the lightside of Minmus on top of a mountain.): Success

Transit 13 L2 (Landed on the nightside of Minmus in a lake bed.): Success

C7 Microsat 5 (Launched towards the Mun last minute. Flew by at a distance of 800 km with no signal.): Success

C7 S1 (The first C7-built probe. [The Microsats were built by paying customers] Contained no way of maneuvering once jettisoned from the launcher and contained no scientific experiments. A test for the C7 SatLauncher 1 orbital rocket.): Success

C7 S2 (The second C7 probe. A probe to measure the levels of micrometeorites in orbit around Kerbin. Launched into an inclined 150x5,000 km Kerbin orbit by the SatLauncher 1.): Success

Next planned mission: STS 10b (A mission to test a nuclear reactor in orbit. Nuclear reactors will be used in future interplanetary missions. Will have the same crew as STS-10. They will be especially trained for the landing portion of the mission as shuttle repairs will put the Space Program in debt one day.)

STS-10 at sunrise

Monoprop jettisoned after Truss B was delivered to the station

Duna Orbiter 2 arrives at Duna

Ike at closest approach

Duna's vast expanse of deep gorges and canyons

DO 2 leaving Duna's atmosphere after an usuccessful aerobrake. Shortly after jettisoning the fuel after it ran out during aerobrake.

Transit 13 L1 approaching the mountaintop of Minmus.

Microsat 5 and a New Mun

Microsat 5 at Mun closest approach

C7 S1 launch at sunrise

C7 S2 at apoapsis

[Leafbaron]

With air space around KSC restricted to spaceplane development and testing, The boys at Steadler Engineering Corps, C7 aerospace, EEG, and Kerbodyne needed to use another facility to launch from in order to test their new equipment. Here at Trehus Propulsion Laboratories can only assume the old Inland KSC. While testing an SSTO with 50 ton payload capabilities was being tested on a suborbital trajectory. A distress signal was received. 4 Kerbals were stranded in Munar orbit, presumably from the joint venture between Steadler, C7, EEG, and Kerbodyne. TPL tracked 3 pieces of debris in Munar orbit pinging with vital signs. 2 in an inclined, high altitude retro grade orbit and one in a low altitude circular orbit. The fourth was from the munar surface. The rescue mission is daring and will require a lucrative delta v budget. Work was started immediately on a rescue craft capable of such requirements while also being fitting into the 40 ton capable, proven, and tested SSTO. 

The aptly name Condor set off to LKO with payload in tow. 

The rescue mission was to planned to enter a retrograde Munar orbit and pick up the two stranded kerbals. Land on the Mun and pickup the third. Finally. enter a prograde orbit to pick up the last kerbal. All efforts went smoothly and according to design. Mission control was relieved and so were the stranded Astronauts. 

A full mission debriefing confirmed they were part of the wreckage from the joint engineering venture and that during landing just before touchdown, a catastrophic plumbing failure occurred. Spraying liquid fuel and oxidizer into a combustible cloud that sparked upon contact with the ignited landing engines. this sent debris into retro and prograde orbits and thanks to the lumpy gravity field around the moon inclined and heightened the altitude of two of the command pods.

Lets just say Trehus Propulsion Labs will be getting huge discounts from  Steadler, C7, EEG, and Kerbodyne in the future for rescuing their astronauts. 

[LameLefty]

I haven't done much in KSP lately, since 1.2 was released. My ancient Early 2011 MacBook Pro finally bit the dust. But today ... today I installed Steam and downloaded KSP onto my fresh-from-the-box Alienware 15 R3 - KSP runs a lot better from a fast SSD and a GTX 1070 videocard than it did from a 5400 rpm mechanical drive and a 256MB mobile Radeon card! This weekend I will install updates to all my favorite mods and start a new save.  

[Jett_Quasar]

I put up my KISS station using my heavy SSTO launcher...

I still need to tweak the design a bit...

Jett

 

 

 

 

[Martian Emigrant]

21 minutes ago, Jett_Quasar said:

I still need to tweak the design a bit...

Jett

Try retracting the gear

 

ME

[Firemetal]

On 12/27/2016 at 7:33 AM, Flamingo said:

In my science save my base has finally arrived to Duna and landed in a slightly sloped area. Now it is time for Jeb to bring his plane down from orbit so it can fly around and collect science. But landing the plane was slightly harder than i thought i would be, so i made a little video of how to land a plane on Duna.

 

 

I feel your pain. Been there, done that.  

Fire

[phantom000]

I actually managed to land at the Twin Craters on Mun and got the ship back safely! This was my fourth attempt, I kept running out of fuel before i could get back. I tried upgrading the fuel tank on my lander but it crashed because of the extra weight. So i modified the lander to carry a docking clamp and launched a resupply ship, it was similar to my lander but it lighter and was automated. My lander had just enough fuel left to lift off into a stable orbit, so i switched to the resupply ship, docked with the lander to refuel it and flew it back to Kerbin, safe and sound!

Now what should i do with the supply ship, its still orbiting Mun but only has like 1/4 of its fuel left.

[kraden]

2 hours ago, phantom000 said:

Now what should i do with the supply ship, its still orbiting Mun but only has like 1/4 of its fuel left.

As @eddiew says, leave your assets in orbit.

You never know when you might need it again.

[Brownhair2]

On 12/27/2016 at 4:05 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Now that right there is some serious tidal action!

I mean, Sonnah is pretty big...

10 hours ago, Flamingo said:

So you are the one who have been stealing my oceans!

They're mine now

(also yes it is called an altimeter)

---

Not much. Landed on Bop. That's all.

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Brownhair2

[Carl]

Since i got a few likes, here's a spacecraft exchange thread of that tourist orbiter of mine, if anyone wants the sunprobe just ask. 

[mesocyclone]

Captured this ending of a transit of Moho from LKO, through the lenses of one of the "Pictozooms" installed on my Orbital Station. Totally by happenstance, but a cool sight! 
 

 

[DunaRocketeer]

Upgraded to a newer ksp version. Worse frame rates once all my usual mods are added, and there are big ugly gaps in the terrain. Waste of time, back to 1.0 I go

[Moh1336]

Today Jeb got bored and insisted Bill make him a Thunderbird S like plane.

[CaptainTrebor]

Got Valentina stuck in LKO 

[eddiew]

8 hours ago, kraden said:

As @eddiew says, leave your assets in orbit.

You never know when you might need it again.

I can't even remember when I said that, but it's probably true that I did  If you didn't need all of the fuel in a supply ship, that's fine, maybe it can top up something else later. Sooner or later, the habit of leaving things in orbit will save you a launch ^^

[The Raging Sandwich]

8 hours ago, mesocyclone said:

Captured this ending of a transit of Moho from LKO, through the lenses of one of the "Pictozooms" installed on my Orbital Station. Totally by happenstance, but a cool sight! 
 

 

Of the 3+ years of playing this, I've never seen that happen!

[JadeOfMaar]

42 minutes ago, The Raging Sandwich said:

Of the 3+ years of playing this, I've never seen that happen!

Why does Moho's transit "end" on that side though?

[Firemetal]

So... After visiting Slate and Tekto and returning in OPM, then going back to stock, what do I do now? Long term colonization? Heck yeah!

But which planet do I colonize first? I decided that I would choose between Gilly and Duna. Gilly would be quite easy thanks to its low gravity. However, I have been watching two TV programs on Mars. One being the much talked about Mars Series, and the second one being Mars the Secret Science. It has been quite fun to watch both even though "The Secret Science" was slightly better in my opinion. But anyway I decided to go with Duna because of my interest in Mars travel.

I first decided on a compact base design that could be shipped to Mars in one launch. I then would build a separate unmanned base for refueling only. I would have a large rover go from the refueling base to the return vehicle and refuel it over time. However IMO, I could just bring the vehicle with me using to claws since those rovers are a beast. Furthermore, because I was able to move the return vehicle with a claw, why not build the base with a rover? So I designed a base that had four docking ports on the bottom of each module. One would connect to the rest of the base while the other three would be open for the base to be extended. So the testing on Kerbin began.

I found out that the big rover wouldn't be able to carry the parts around without it being tedious and dangerous so I built a new version of... the Worker Ant.

What is this Worker Ant you ask?

Back in the days of 1.0.5, I decided to build a colony on Minimus. Fun fact: This was before I joined the forums. So I looked at other people's designs and came up with a rover that carried parts on its back to the base. The base was very crude and I stopped work on it when 1.1 was released. However the designs were great in my eyes and now, I built a new one. This one however uses landing legs to raise itself onto the docking port. Because of this, it needs two worker ants to carry one part around to keep it balanced. It also uses a claw for when there are no docking ports to attach to.

So I will build it on Kerbin first, then send it all to Duna and build it there. But that's it for now.

Fire

 

[Guest]

One rocket to rule them all.

I think I've spent longer designing this graphic than the craft itself...

 

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Why does Moho's transit "end" on that side though?

It passed behind the sun rather than in front, no?

Edited December 29, 2016 by Guest

[heihei4c]

During the journey to Duna, I have decided to take some contracts around Mun and Minmus to earn some funding and SCIENCE.

 

Here is one of my most commonly used Sirius Mk.II spacecraft for Mun and Minmus contracts.

It could take 3 kerbals and consists of a SCIENCE module.

Shelgun Kerman pilots it to rescue Hudmy and Sigte Kerman around Minmus, then land on it for SCIENCE.

Now it is on an escape trajectory to Kerbol orbit for crew XP.

 

Then I spent my time to redesign my Sirius spacecraft to Mk.III.

By upgrading it to NERV engine, it could now take 7 kerbals to LKO with ~3200m/s delta-v.

Here is the picture of Sirius Mk.III taken after rescuing Catiella and Hainie Kerman in LKO, and Mitcas Kerman on Mun surface, with 3 tourists on board.

I have failed and save/load multiple time for the precision landing. (I have forgot how to land with NERV apparently ) , I finally landed about 1.1km apart from the distress craft.

Then I think.........

and call it a day.

Jebdock Kerman is the pilot and captain for this mission, now they are transferring to Minmus and going to land on there for the tourists' contract. (and MOAR SCIENCE of course!!!)

Edited December 29, 2016 by heihei4c

[eddiew]

Noticed that KRnD is now compatible with the latest KSP and thus considered kicking off a new career... but I have no idea how the game's playing for everyone anymore 

How's KSP feeling in 1.2.x? Where are we at with things like wheel physics and performance, and have there been any hints of a 1.3 in the works?

[Carl]

Been working on my Tourist Mk 3 making it mechjeb ascent guidance compatible. Not quite licked it so no pictures yet, but just got to figure out how to get it down without the solar's blowing up...

 

Everything else is working perfectly.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Carl

[mesocyclone]

24 minutes ago, String Witch said:

It passed behind the sun rather than in front, no?

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Why does Moho's transit "end" on that side though?

It was going farther away everytime I timewarped, so I thought it was "ending"... Forgot it orbits the other way! My bad! Problems of playing at 4:00 AM...
Indeed it was passing behind the sun, but from orbit it just looked like that. So, no legit transit? 

 

2 hours ago, The Raging Sandwich said:

Of the 3+ years of playing this, I've never seen that happen!

You must have Distant Objects Enhancement installed