What did you do in KSP1 today?

[KerrMü]

I´ve spent the last eve before new years eve on... well... Eve. Ok, I would have had lots of stuff to do on Duna, but for some reason I didn´t want to finish 2016 looking at something orange.

So I flew my second carreer manned landing on Eve. The landing site was about 600m above sea level. Not much sciency stuff this time. Just planted a flag, took a surface sample and said "let´s get the hell outa here!". A more elaborate mission with a rover is in the planning phase. 

The ascent vehicle was a tiny bit overpowered... Ok, it was seriously overpowered. I had to throttle way back to not overheat or let the kerbonaut lose consciousness.

On board of the "EVE Caelestis" colleagues, reporters and VIPs awaited our intrepid hero.

After so much exitement I needed something to calm down, so I´ve spent two hours flying a propprobe at 15000m to take some measurements of the atmosphere for a contract before smashing it into the explodium sea. (yay, fireworks!)

So with this I´ll sign off for this year. I have to attend a party. I wish you all a fantastic new years eve and a happy new year.

Cheers 

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by KerrMü

[dangerhamster]

With a completed asteroid spotting contract and some cash donated for finding anomalies on the Mun (and Jeb safely on Minmus) enough funds were released to enable Val to restart the airship program.

Both the electric and liquid fuel variants are being tested with a variety of control and landing packages. The gondolas are configured for light cargo, passenger and science use along with the ability to deploy a scout rover or cargo container.

[Carl]

Quote

So since the Mun2/Minmus1 landing mission is just weeks away, I decided that biome hopping in that lander won't be feasible. I had hoped to use the PackRat Rover, but I'm impatient and I really like the Karibou with its roomy interior and lots of room for science experiments. So I made several "simulations" to see if I could get it to the Mun using its VTOL engines for final landing all the way uncrewed. All simulations were unsuccessful.

Perhaps I'll have to amend the rover build a bit. I think the center of gravity is off as it wants to flip out under powered landing approach. Also, the nerv engine I used for the trip out to the Mun and orbital insertion when I got there is ridiculously slow for that much mass.

These sorts of simulated disasters make me want to pull whats left of my hair out. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Sounds like my day, this is my current WIP Mun Tourist Bus. Not going so well, stability is an issue and cost has spiraled undesirably. Also insufficient battery provision on the stack, (the hab cans and associated bits), so re-entry tests have fallen apart due to power loss half way down. Got a lot of work ahead of me to get this baby to fly. Needs the SAS swapping for 2.5m modules and a service bay with batteries putting on the stack, also solar panels are yet to go on, (need research for all of that). Also not entirely happy with the kickback's. The Thumpers don't burn long enough but these are bloody expensive and i'm having to combine thrust and fuel limits on them as they're a bit much in both.

EDIT: Forgot the picture - DoH!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by Carl

[LordFerret]

Working on the shuttle I've built. The ride up is very shaky, control is poor at best, but it does make orbit with a full orange tank for payload. The return trip, empty, is a dream... it glides and flies very nicely. I need to work on the reentry timing, but it's 100% possible to land as a glider on the KSC runway.

More pictures will follow once I've got the particulars hammered out.

[something]

Today, I decided that my Minmus base was in need of an airport like tower in order to make it more awesome. So I built a nice little 32t tower and tried to get it in orbit. It works but 4km/s just to reach LKO makes me wonder, if I should assemble it on site instead of sending the whole tower out there in one piece. Might be more practical after all.

[Kerbal Fried Chicken]

My science crew got bored.

http://imgur.com/a/jy7KK
 

[Torquimedes]

Assembling a video of my F-14 Tomcat with swing-wings in action.

Seen here buzzing the Orange Tangmarine with ASROC loaded.

[Jett_Quasar]

Tested my ability to land on and return from Tylo with a heavy mining lander which doubles as a propulsion unit for my interplanetary explorer craft.

Jett

 

[Mjarf]

I've been quite busy today with my ongoing Mun/Minums science harvesting. I figured my 6 engine landing craft was too complex, too underpowered and overall unreliable so I (accidentally) crashed it into the Mun (luckily Jeb survived and is now on a long vacation) and did a new design from scratch. I also sent up a combined docking hub and RCS fuel depot to further expand my Mun science station. Valentina has taken Jeb's place in the Mun/Minmus science project and her first task was to fly the new lander and docking-hub/monoprop-depot to the science station. 

The combined weight of the fuel depot and lander with transfer stage required a quite large first stage, I love building large rockets:

The fairing is just dead weight outside the atmosphere:

Don't you guy just love burning huge amounts of rocket fuel:

Off to the Mun we go, I love the Poodle engine, it may look a bit goofy, but it's a proper workhorse:

Here's the lander docked with the station, the fuel depot is parked nearby to be placed by the remote controlled tug I built and sent up a couple days ago:

I'm quite pleased with the little tug, it's very good at hauling space stuff:

The hub also has a Klaw to park the tug on or to attach anything to the station:

The transfer stage had a lot of fuel left in the tank so Valentina made the first trip to Minmus, no point wasting all that fuel:

The maiden voyage of the new "Munin" lander was a great success, it has better performance and reliability than the old Hugin N craft:

The old "Hugin N" design had 6 CANDLE engines, the new one has a single NERV engine. It's a much simpler design with fewer parts and a higher TWR of 3.68 fully fueled at the Mun. I lost the craft file for the Hugin N, but it had a TWR of less than 3 fully fueled at the Mun. It has exactly 4000m/s Delta-v fully fueled, a bit less than the old lander, but it's more than enough. I like how it's exactly 4000m/s, that's why it has no ladder, as it would bring it slightly below 4000.

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by Mjarf
typo

[Fearless Son]

Earlier this week I made a replica of an F15 Eagle.  I took a little liberty with the landing gear, but I think I did a good job otherwise.  Really nimble, can supercruise at low altitude without going to afterburners.  

[SaturnianBlue]

I built a huge 2016 sign and blew it up.

 

In other news I messed with @Columbia's Titanic with torpedoes and rockets and in general it tends to explode rather violently or lists over.

Edited January 1, 2017 by SaturnianBlue

[Fearless Son]

Also, earlier today, I finished putting a relay network in orbit of Duna:

Which in turn helps out this little science rover I set down:

The tower behind the rover is a combination landing system and relay.  Thanks to the high signal strength of all the relays around, this thing transmits at around 65% to 75% of maximum science return.  Landed in one of Duna's craters.  Got science readings from the crater bottom, the lowlands on the crater's slopes, and the midlands near the crater edge.  All and all, it was a pretty good mission.  

Edited January 1, 2017 by Fearless Son

[Carl]

How the hell did you get those positioned so perfectly....

[Fearless Son]

1 minute ago, Carl said:

How the hell did you get those positioned so perfectly....

Bring transit vessel into a circular orbit.  Detach one satellite and get it clear of the transit vessel.  Set that satellite as a rendezvous target. Set a maneuver node, and reduce the apoapsis.  Set a second maneuver node to re-circularize the orbit on the phase of the first maneuver node.  Look for the "Target at closest approach" line.  Adjust the first maneuver node until the closest approach line is about one-third of the way around the planet.  Use that first maneuver node as a guide to reduce the apoapsis.  Detach the second satellite on the next apoapsis pass after the burn.  Re-circularize and repeat for the last satellite.  

Let the game take care of the math for you.

[Mjp1050]

KSP: Kerbal Space Submarine Program.

35 m/s below the water, and 330 above. Quite nimble, with all those control surfaces.

[Triop]

 

Happy new year guys !

[septemberWaves]

@Kertech I've been using 6.4x scale lately in preparation for a New Horizons playthrough that I plan on starting once NH is released for 1.2.x. With an efficient launch profile I can get to low Kerbin orbit (150km, or 10km above the atmosphere if it's at 140km) with about 6500m/s of delta-v. I usually aim for about 6800m/s though, partly to give myself some room for error, and partly to allow some excess delta-v for in-orbit maneuvering.

In general, the delta-v multiplier is about 2.51x the stock values, because the absolute delta-v requirements are multiplied by the square root of the scale factor. However, for ascent and descent values it can be less than that, because there are proportionally less gravity losses relative to the size of the planet (the planet being larger means that a larger percentage of the velocity you need is horizontal, so you need to go sideways a lot more than up).

[Brownhair2]

I present to you my most promising Titanus lander yet: the Titanus Ascent Vehicle!

Stage 1: Flies to the upper atmosphere using jet engines

Stage 2: The wings and jet engines detach

Stage 3: It's so CUTE er, efficient

Now I just need to get it there...

 

[Sharpy]

Preparing to Kerbin-Dakar. Deployed service rovers with engineers on board at all waypoints.

I've been always struggling with good manoeuvrability of airplanes whenever alierons happened to land somewhere near CoM due to wing geometry forcing them there. Sometimes adding canards for little effect, as they wouldn't change much. Then I made that Su-27 with slats, because the real one has slats - and I was amazed how great it flies. Dammit, now all my planes will have slats! This one flew like a damned mule until I added slats. Afterwards - whoa! Instead of banking around to give the rover time to land I'd make a tight alieron roll! In an MK4 airplane!

[Aragosnat]

Not much. Returned a crew and tourists of 15 back to Kerbin:

 

There was a lot of exploding of the deorbeting craft on the way past me.

[sukk741]

Ditto, except for work I miss the days when it was a school. But it costs a lot less and a lot less stress. (Although at the time I would not have believed it) back and sighed.

[StickLabs]

launching Kerbini

http://imgur.com/a/auf6p

[spongey45]

>Build customizable rover

>Decides to mess up with BDArmory

>After besieging KSC, decides to drive it underwater

 

Need to stop to recharge batteries...

We could say that the guys back at KSC are extremely good at making things watertight...

The cannons could fire too!

Edited January 1, 2017 by spongey45

[The Raging Sandwich]

Though it wasn't today, I just didn't get around to posting it on here.

Laythe TM-T1 (The first mission of the Laythe TM spacecraft. It is designed for increased orbital missions and missions to the Mun. It was launched on a suborbital trajectory towards the Mun on a Duna A booster. The second stage cut out while boosting it to the Mun so the spacecraft had to use onboard fuel, but it wasn't too bad. Increased fuel in the second stage will be implemented on the first mission. It arrived at the Mun and rendezvoused with MunLab 1. During docking procedure, the monopropellant tanks completely shut off, causing them unusable and the docking was scrapped. It got within 10 m of the station, though. It then returned home to be recovered.): Partial success

SP-1 F1 (The first flight of an experimental unmanned spaceplane. During takeoff, it pitched up a little too much causing the engine to brake and the plane to touchdown back at the runway a second later.): Failure

SP-1 F2 (After spending a couple days repairing the engine, the spaceplane was ready for another flight. It took off, reached an apoapsis of 101 km, ran out of electricity, and plummeted back into the ocean. It reached its goal of making it into suborbital space.): Partial failure

C7 S5 (A retry of S4 but this time with a liquid-fuel third stage. Successfully reached orbit of the Mun.): Success

SP-1 F-3 (After successfully making it into space before, modifications were made. It just might have been able to make it into orbit before, so a docking port on the top, a battery, and an RTG were placed onto it. The tiny amount of weight added caused it to only reach half of its height from before and more testing will have to be made.): Failure

[loch.ness]

I got my mission to Duna started off.  I've never tried a comic format before so I've no idea what I'm doing - and I found that to be suitably kerbal to do it anyway.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited January 1, 2017 by loch.ness
Wrong image 4, fixed now