What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Guest]

Finally got seriously bit by the landing gear kraken. Was rearranging my Kosmodrome -- had put in flags to mark the start and end of the runway, was moving the craft to an area to the side, etc. -- and I left my planes parked with the gear down. Bad move. When I switched away and then approached the Pelican again, it jumped high, high in the air, and upon landing split in two, just like my heart.

Fortunately there's a quicksave but it was a half-hour old. But eh.

[Just Jim]

1 minute ago, Brikoleur said:

Finally got seriously bit by the landing gear kraken. Was rearranging my Kosmodrome -- had put in flags to mark the start and end of the runway, was moving the craft to an area to the side, etc. -- and I left my planes parked with the gear down. Bad move. When I switched away and then approached the Pelican again, it jumped high, high in the air, and upon landing split in two, just like my heart.

Fortunately there's a quicksave but it was a half-hour old. But eh.

This is one of those few cases I might think about hitting alt-F12 and going indestructible, just long enough to get past the jumping part safely and not lose the ship.

[CatastrophicFailure]

22 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

This is one of those few cases I might think about hitting alt-F12 and going indestructible, just long enough to get past the jumping part safely and not lose the ship.

It’s not cheating if the game cheats first. 

[Kerbal Dynamics]

Flight testing of my new SST concept.

First prototype carried a full load of passengers, ran out of fuel and got stranded in the middle of nowhere... passengers and crew airlifted back to KSC

https://imgur.com/gallery/7gfUi

Second prototype completed a 3-4-hour+ flight to the South Pole with a handful of intermediate fuel stops

https://imgur.com/a/iAu8L

(I have no idea if these links actually work)

Edited January 27, 2018 by Kerbal Dynamics
fixes

[Just Jim]

8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

It’s not cheating if the game cheats first. 

Exactly! If someone has to circumvent a bug, I see no problem with using alt-F12 to get around it. 

[Geonovast]

32 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Exactly! If someone has to circumvent a bug, I see no problem with using alt-F12 to get around it. 

I bet you anything that's why the menu is there...creating it was easier than fixing everything perfectly.

[Just Jim]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

I bet you anything that's why the menu is there...creating it was easier than fixing everything perfectly.

Perhaps, but in all fairness, they've been wrestling with the bouncing wheel issue as long back as I can remember. So I have to believe it's not as easy as it seems, or they'd have solved it by now. I just try and find ways to deal with it for now.

There have also been times I've used Alt F-12 when I'm first loading up a large base camp, because they can sometimes bounce as well.

Oh, and to bring this back on topic... I blew up a couple things today... 

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by Just Jim

[adsii1970]

Had a productive day today...

Cargo shuttle launch on the way to rendezvous with an orbiting station.  Needed a lot of cargo space because of a repair to the station that became very much needed...

Currently, the cargo shuttle is in a parking orbit, waiting until the station is ready to receive it.

Tested (for a third mission), the new STS system. Apparently Dr. Wernher took a peek into Dr. Angelo's ( @Angel-125 ) shuttle plans and decided to test it while Dr. Angelo's not around the space center:

 

 

[TheEpicRanger6]

Today, I tried to get into orbit and accidently reached escape velocity... oh gosh.

[Geonovast]

I can't decide if this thing is ugly or awesome.  Electric planes are a little weird to build.

 

I call it..

The Electric Science Plane... Of Science!!!

[Hotel26]

Flight trials of Pterodactyl continue to make progress.  Pterodactyl carries a 12t load called Gimlet.  It has/had 4 RAPIERs.

Performed climb and shallow dive (speed run) tests at various altitudes but no go.

Reduced the weight by replacing the payload with a clip-in orange tank.  No problems.  Found that I could put 32 tons of fuel into the orange tank and make cruise (~20km) altitude with great ease.

Concluded that the Drag Queen, Gimlet, was the problem.  Eventually went to 6 RAPIERs.  (via 8).  Objective is to have the range for 90deg circ. of Kerbin (KSC to Baikerbanur).  Succeeded with a speed run descending lightly from about 13km.  Got to 21km doing about 1170.  (I throttled back to avoid those orange/reddy bar thingies.  Even shutdown the 2 inboard RAPIERs to simplify fuel management.)

Very close to BKB, fuel endurance calculations showed we'd done very well with this trip (getting supersonic!) but there would be no cigars and definitely NO champagne from a sneaker this day...  (Yes, it's not just Australians who perform this obscene "feat"; Kerbals also!)

So now things had definitely become exciting.  Bale out!!?  Pack had the test pilot's lunch in it, but no chute.  Gonna have to get creative pretty quickly!  Picked a deserty valley between two mountains but did not want to try landing there with the heavy Gimlet riding along.  So I think it's my first time seeing this done.  Undocked the Gimlet and watched it happily roll off the back.  Switched to it and triggered its chutes.  Back to the Pterodactyl and spiraled it gently down on a knife-tip, keeping a motherly eye on the fledgling payload.  Mother and child made it both safely to the ground.

Here's thirsty Gimlet cheerfully getting a drink.  (A very proud Pterodactyl is parked behind the camera, not pictured.)

Next idea: a re-entry test.  I'll strap Pterry to an Aquila launcher and orbit it.  Same then for Gimlet on another launch.  Mate them in space...  If it can survive re-entry it would be a very nice delivery system (or at least another option) since it's technically quite easier to DESCEND to cruise altitude rather than CLIMB.    (Anyway, it's for science!)

 

UPDATE: 2nd attempt to Baikerbanur succeeded with 1362 LF in the tanks at the finish of the cruise phase.  This has been a deeply satisfying project!

Edited January 28, 2018 by Hotel26

[Starman4308]

17 minutes ago, TheEpicRanger6 said:

Today, I tried to get into orbit and accidently reached escape velocity... oh gosh.

You have no idea how often stuff like that happens when people overengineer their craft.

For example, Terra 1! First payload launched on new R6-Able booster! First satellite in polar orbit! First satellite with advanced Geiger-Muller tubes and impact detectors! First probe to be controllable while in orbit! First probe to reach outer edges of Earth system! Completed all mission objectives perfectly!

Also first probe to be accidentally sent into heliocentric orbit! No scientific data could be returned from this fortuitous event, however, as Terra I, now renamed Helios I, ran out of battery power.

Other achievements by mid-1955:

Probe adapted from Able upper stage returned from LEO to surface with live biological payload. Incidentally, I'm now convinced I need more RCS propellant for my rockets.

After two unmanned tests, the Moho I spacecraft has succeeded in a pair of suborbital flights with Valentina and Jebediah at the helm. Rumors that both went to the hospital after recovery from a 25G reentry are utter fabrications.

Incidentally, I thought in RP-0, the Kerbal names were supposed to be replaced with real-world names? That's the impression I got from Scott Manley's series.

There are also some exciting new missions coming up. Two mass simulators: the R6B-Able and R7-Castor-Able-242 rockets.

The R6B-Able is an extended version of the R6-Able used for Terra 1 and the reentry tests. The first stage is stretched, until launch TWR is 1.4 instead of 1.8, and the upper stage is at 1.5m diameter instead of the narrow 800 mm diameter of its Able avionics. My best estimate for that rocket is 500-750 kg to orbit, massing 50.544 tons on the pad.

The R7-Castor-Able-242 is the second of its series. This series has a larger upper stage, with 2 AJ-10 engines, a 2-meter payload fairing, and a stretched RD-108 powered core of about 57 tons. None of this series can get off the pad without Castor SRBs: it ranges from the -222 with just a pair of boosters and an estimated 1.1 tons to LEO, all the way to the -282 with eight Castor boosters (fired 4 at a time), having an estimated 2 tons to orbit. The basic R7-Able core is 75.65 tons, with each Castor booster adding 3.86 tons.

While I could have gotten even more payload to orbit with my original R7 design, that had 4 RD-100 liquid-fueled boosters instead of the Castors, those early RD-100 engines aren't terribly reliable. I also just like the idea of a family of rockets with some actual lineage to them.

I also have 3 commsat missions and an orbital imagery mission on the itinerary. Each commsat mission carries a pair of lightweight, solar-powered (a first!) communication relays to LEO on an R6B-Able. I was originally considering a true GEO communication relay, but between poor avionics technology and the need for a lot of solar panels, I scaled that back to LEO communication relays. The orbital imagery mission is based on the Agena bus with a 200kg return vehicle, launched on an R7-Castor-Able-222, and will be launching out of Vandenburg in about 180 days when the launchpad there reaches level 2.

[Pipcard]

Landed on Ike for the first time

Edited January 28, 2018 by Pipcard

[Reusables]

Today, I made a Nerv-only SSTO.

https://imgur.com/a/oUeOF

https://imgur.com/a/20C69

Edited January 28, 2018 by Reusables

[The Flying Kerbal]

Poor old Bob had a bit of a nightmare.  He was testing a prototype for a new mission in the KSP Demo sandbox when things started going wrong as he was preparing to land on Minmus.  Running out of fuel left his ship falling onto the Flats, blowing up the engine, smashing one of its two solar panels, and lying on its side.  Using the reaction wheels, he managed to right it so it was facing skywards, but he had nowhere near enough monopropellant to make orbit and break out for Kerbin.  So he simply waited until he thought he was in the right position, then took off hoping to fly a direct descent which would bring his Pe. into Kerbin's atmosphere.  No chance, he ended up about 500 K short.

So now he had no resources left, and things were looking bad.  With a typical Bobby frown on his face, he realised the only option left was get out and push.

The Big Push!

Finally after numerous EVA's, the Pe was down to just over 20K, well within the atmosphere, nothing could go wrong now, right?  Well no actually...  For some reason I still haven't fully sussed out, the parachute overheated and exploded during reentry.  No idea why, I've dropped down to 20K from Minus on numerous occasions, but this time something went wrong.  So his only chance was to jump for it!

Bob's "One Giant Leap"!

He survived! 

Splashdown!

Edited January 28, 2018 by The Flying Kerbal

[Guest]

Yeah stupid kraken. I'll work around it somehow. And leave my planes parked flat on their belly. 

Three issues, ranging from minor to medium, have emerged, and I intend to solve them when the next launch window comes by.

1. Electrical power. While the ISRU ticks away happily by itself, if an engineer sits in the command set, efficiency jumps by so much the fuel cell array can't keep up. I verified this.
2. Traction. My tanker can't move when fully filled. This makes things somewhat fiddly, basically I can't just leave it running until it's full, I have to watch it somehow. 
3. Fueling the Laytheabout. It's designed for in-orbit fueling, and I don't have anything that's able to fuel it on the surface, which means it's difficult to use for long-range exploration of Laythe. 

All of these problems can be solved with one simple module...

...a tractor.

Design on the Massy-Kerguson starts now.

I'm also going to continue developing the Kosmodrome with available assets. And I'm seeing if I can come up with a manageable way of installing runway lights. It would require 18 self-powered lighting units that are easy to drop into place and light enough to fly out there. If each of them ends up needing a RTG those are going to be some expensive lighting fixtures...

[septemberWaves]

After a bit of a break, I'm getting back into KSP.

I'm going to stop trying to do career game series; though I've enjoyed my attempts, it tends to start getting tedious when I can't accomplish my grand plans for the mid-game and late-game because it takes me too long to get there. I'm also going to stop with challenges for now, though at some point when I have more free time I do want to resurrect my old Doing It Constellation Style challenge (which I've noticed is approaching a year old) because that one was fun to do.

So what will I be doing? Well...

I'll be focusing my efforts on engineering and design. Creating vehicles that are functional and aesthetically pleasing, and possibly uploading them to KerbalX when I'm satisfied with the functionality. The above images are demonstrations rather than examples, but I think they make nice showpieces and they were good practice after a while without playing at all.

[Ace in Space]

My battle against the Base Kraken continues, although as of today I think I have finally won. The twitchiness of my previous base design seems to have stemmed from docking ports being ever-so-very-slightly misaligned, despite all modules being made from the same base template (only the stuff sitting on top the template varied). Near as I can tell, this was due to the fact that each module had a different weight and therefore pressed down on its landing legs a different amount, resulting in each one sitting at a different height.

Today I redesigned the base from the ground up and constructed my new test base on the field outside KSC. This one has landing legs only for use during construction and the actual process of landing. Once the module has been carried to the appropriate location by the hauler-bot rover, landing legs extend so the rover can drop out from under it and reverse away, then the landing legs go back up and the module ends up actually sitting on the four small rockets used for landing. Since these don't compress, every module sits at the same height.

Bonuses of the redesign include the fact that I no longer need dedicated connector segments (they're built into the modules) and because the modules are so low to the ground, if the docking port is slightly misaligned, I can use the hauler-bot to gently nudge the module in the right direction. So construction is that much easier now!

I'd put a picture in here but I don't feel like uploading a screenshot to a hosting site and haven't yet figured out how to upload images directly onto the forums yet (though the existence of the "insert existing attachment" button tells me that it's possible to do so).

 

I guess tomorrow I'll have to design the rockets to actually deliver these modules to their location - intended destination right now is Minmus, but I've designed them to hopefully be a versatile design to be reused without modification, so I'll see about landing them and constructing a base on the Mun too - if I can make it work there, I should theoretically be able to make it work in various key locations across the solar system.

[Hotel26]

Sorry to post again in this thread in the same day but, earlier, I had mentioned that a troubled, top-secret, experimental research airplane (code-named "Pterodactyl") inexplicably lost a 12-ton cargo overboard; to wit, a rather massive drill rig.

Fortunately. no one on the ground was hurt and, quite miraculously, no equipment was lost!

In any case, the drill rig, affectionately known as Gimlet, had so much fun, squealing "wee!! wee!! weeeeee!!!!" all the way down, (topped off with a nice, long, cool drink of gasoline straight from sweet mother earth that left her feeling a little high!), that she demanded to continue her adventures in aviation immediately.

So here it is.  Gimlet takes a ride on a great, big booster; gets her pretty little pigtails fried on re-entry; and then struggles with altitude, airspeed and her severe weight & balance problem.

 

It does go to prove, though, that even pigs can fly!

[Only in KSP, that is...!  Do not try this at home.  Do not allow impressionable young children to view this material!!]

Edited January 28, 2018 by Hotel26

[Laie]

I almost landed on Tylo:

Consistently, too: in several tries I always ran out of fuel just moments before touchdown. A single FL-T400 tank would provide me with another 10 seconds of hover time, which would be positively generous in this situation. *gnashes his teeth*

[Guest]

The Massive-Kerguson space tractor has entered preliminary trials. Fueling the Laythabout...

[RizzoTheRat]

Tested a 100 tonne payload (mining base, tug and tanker module) launch with a reusable SSTO

The heavier SSTO (my usual one launches a 45 tonne payload) made re-renty a bit trickier, and it lost an engine and a couple of airbrakes on the way down.  If it had come down intact it would have been about 550 kredits per tonne for the launch, which is about the same as my 45 tonne launcher, which surprised me as I expected it to get more expensive with heavier payloads.  Either that or my 45 tonne launcher needs some tweaking to bring the costs down a bit more.

I have to launch it with MechJeb though as the lag's pretty bad, running about 1/4 speed before I'd even lit the engines!

I think I need to make it a bit stubbier so it decelerates quicker on re-entry.

[Geonovast]

Tested a water belly landing of the ESPOS..

I have noticed this lately... something appears to be messing with bouyancy and perhaps the water level.  I started noticing it when I installed DSEV, but I haven't confirmed it.

[Guest]

TWF you drop out of orbit with 29 m/s to spare... and end up neatly parked next to your other craft at the Laythe Kosmodrome.

Also, I noticed I had a contract outstanding and decided to make it a simple, easy probe mission. One-way glider. 

To, uh, Eve.

Nuh-uh.

Main problem was that my obsolete Eve relay wasn't powerful enough to catch the probe's surface mounted C-16 antenna except a part of the way down, so I was forced to attempt an aerocapture. I still had plenty of dV on the craft itself; my original plan was to do a plain ol' propulsive capture, so it'd just have to survive entry... and that I think it would have dun.

But eh, I think I'll try again with another and more powerful relay in the same launch.

[Corscaria]

Built and launched a new Stanford torus, completely stock this time. Crew capacity 512 Kerbals (NOT including the science modules and command pod). The launch vehicle has 162 engines, 81 per launch stage. Carries 2,000,000 tons of fuel, and burns over 20,000 tons per second. It took 12 launches due to the Kraken attacking... But I finally strutted it up enough to defend against the dreaded Kraken.

Yeah... I might have gone overboard on the solar panels....