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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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21 minutes ago, TeslaPenguin1 said:

Didn't do much else, as MJ is still 1.3.1 :( 

I have an idea! How about learn to play without MJ!

Not to hate or anything, but getting good at the game might actually be funner then you'd think. And if its for dV, KER should work...

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1 hour ago, TeslaPenguin1 said:

Downloaded Tweakscale for 1.4. Didn't do much else, as MJ is still 1.3.1 :( 

Besides the excellent advice to learn the physics well enough to play without MechJeb (which isn't as hard as most people think it is, honest!), I'd also suggest you read the MJ development thread and pay attention when Sarbian makes development builds available. 

See, e.g.:  https://ksp.sarbian.com/jenkins/job/MechJeb2-Dev/

Build 789 works well as far as I can tell. There's some wonkiness going on with the Aircraft Autoland function when heading for KSC runway 09 - looks like maybe something is amiss in either 1.4 or the coordinates in MJ for the runway end - but that's about it from my end. Everything else is working fine. 

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1 hour ago, TeslaPenguin1 said:

Downloaded Tweakscale for 1.4. Didn't do much else, as MJ is still 1.3.1 :( 

 

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, I saw my first Kerbolar eclipse today. I was trying out one of my rovers and the batteries weren't charging, so I right clicked and looked at the status. "Blocked by Mun" it said. I looked up and saw my first Kerbolar eclipse

Really? I looked at the Curse page and it said MJ was 1.4.0. Huh. I wouldn’t know, haven’t downloaded yet. I hope my pause this time isn’t as long as it was for 1.3! :P

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I got the last of my Tylo data loaded onto my MPL, so now it's on to Vall.

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Not much to report here. Vall doesn't really represent any particular challenge to land on; it's just the Mun with a bit higher gravity. Still, that's one more landing completed.

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I'm going to do at least one more landing on Vall to drop a rover onto its surface, but after that the only remaining body without a set of Kerbal footprints will be Bop.

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Working on bashing together a "better" (for my head-canon) Duna configuration for SVE. I figure, for ice caps THAT large, there should be more moisture in the air, mixed with copious amounts of red dust. Still working on it, but here's what I got for now:

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In a new hard career in 1.3.1 (waiting on mod updates), my intrepid engineer Kelrik Kerman just earned his keep.  A 4-seat Mun crew training lander was launched with a significant oversight – total lack of parachutes for the return leg.  I considered just rendezvousing some form of crew reentry vehicle but decided instead of modify my Titan OTV-4 (Orbital Tourist Vehicle) into a 2-seater with KIS storage for chutes & tools.  Other than launching at just about the worst time for a rendezvous, Kelrik was able to EVA over & successfully attach all the chutes, then return to his own ship for reentry, followed by a landing next to the KSC runway.  The Mun lander followed on the next orbit and while nowhere near as precise, splashed down safely ~170km east of KSC.   Apparently the mission didn’t go unnoticed as I was offered my first orbital rescue contract upon returning to KSC.

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Voyager V flew by Callisto. Unfortunately not much was seen, as I came in from the night side of the moon.

Spoiler

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Fun facts: Callisto is a very low-density, undifferentiated icy moon. Because of its lack of tectonic activity, Callisto's surface is remarkably old and well-preserved from its initial formation.

My LEM design, slated to be launched on Saturn IIIB rockets, is... honestly a bit goofy thanks to the long, empty interstages. There's an Agena Model 8096L OMS to put it into lunar orbit; the descent stage uses the LMDE-J lunar descent engine (which can throttle down to an amazingly low 10% of max thrust!), and the ascent stage uses a slightly overpowered AJ10-118K. I decided against making heavy use of the replica Apollo parts from FASA, in no small part because I'd rather not leave a disappointed Kerbal in orbit of the Moon.

Spoiler

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Apollo 10, with veterans Yana Gagarina and Thomas Hudson, plus rookie pilot Elvira Ishutina, launched on June 14, 1994 for a lunar slingshot mission. While Apollo-C was adequate to this task, it too may wind up being a 2-mission series, as there is not a huge amount of value to a mere flyby, and margins would be thin for an orbital mission. Apollo-D, utilizing the Saturn IIIB launch vehicle, should be grossly overspecced quite capable for lunar orbital operations; in addition to delivering a fully fueled Apollo C/SM to lunar injection, the Apollo-D spacecraft is again grossly overspecced enhanced with a month's worth of supplies and much larger solar panels.

Spoiler

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The skip reentry, requiring two passes to land, was totally planned and not in any way due to botching the reentry window.

Spoiler

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Voyager 1 arrived at Uranus. I don't know quite why, but as I approached periapsis to begin the insertion burn, I got a feeling of being alone in the distant, empty unknown, sinking into an endless abyss.

Spoiler

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That feeling of sinking into an endless abyss is why, at some point, I'll be sending an atmospheric probe there, to actually sink into the Uranus abyss.

Otherwise, Voyager 1 will probably not see much attention from me: Uranus right now has only a few generic biomes, and the RSS installation I have does not model any of Uranus's moons.

 

Venera 2 worked better than Venera 1, and is off to the second planet whilst being possibly the most adorable probe sent out to date. One which... um... doesn't have a parachute, and is expected to be destroyed before it hits ground due to pressure limits.

Spoiler

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Last mission of the night was the Saturn-IIIB mass demonstrator flight. It was rolled out during the night, but had to wait about twelve hours for the lunar launch window. During the night, I pondered the majesty of Saturn-class boosters, to be so tall relative to the VAB. Then day came, and, well...

Spoiler

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Usually I'm careful to move rockets back down to the ground in the VAB before launching, but clearly not this time.

Launch was very nominal. The NK-43 closed-cycle engines proved their worth, being significantly cheaper than a similar hydrolox stage.

Spoiler

 

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Looking forwards to testing the Apollo LEM: unlike the real-world Apollo program that launched them single-stack, mine uses a pair of launches (one grossly overpowered C/SM launch, a LEM launch that actually justifies the capabilities of the Saturn IIIB), similar to many of my other games. The stupendously overbuilt C/SM will help with any difficulties in rendezvous.

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Stock electric props and cruising across the ocean. For some challenge here that was actually pretty good.

The race to the island challenge without reaction engines one.

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Did a little more Mun science gathering for the heck of it, nothing too special there.

I decided that I didn't have enough scientists, since all of my kerbals are typically recruited through rescue and therefore I basically get a totally random assortment of them, regardless of what I actually need. So I decided I'd just go hire some.

Spoiler

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You've gotta be kidding me.

My camera probe reached its maneuver node, where I discovered that it... doesn't actually have enough fuel to go to Dres. :blush: I've designed another probe for the purpose of tossing at Dres, but launching it will have to wait.

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I did some pretty hefty modding today... with a pretty big test craft. I'm in the stock system here because I had to clean up some configs that only work in the stock system, and my test install that's a little too heavily modded now is going down the toilet.

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During my testing in GPP earlier, I tried to build a lander for this station. It's a miner drone but is overloaded with gear and cannot ascend with a desired full cargo. I need my lander to be all-in-one or an SSTO rover plane cargo-only thing because there's no way in heck I'm gonna get a vertical lander to land in the same spot more than once. :( 

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Today I found an interesting... and exploitable bug with my dinosaur 1.2.2 save and Kerbalism. Apparently if a Kerbal dies from a Kerbalism thing (ran out of O2 at high altitude, here) while on EVA, they leave a corpse.

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She's dead, Jim...

However...

If one somehow returns the body to the homeworld...

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...and recovers it...

...the dead Kerbal is reanimated!

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Bigger problem: undead Kerbelle wandering around loose.

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On 10/03/2018 at 6:25 PM, Kronus_Aerospace said:

Any of Y'all ever managed to send a 15 kiloton payload into LKO? Me neither, but I'm sure as hell gonna try!

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Ya know, I need to upgrade my computer...

I can easily* build craft capable of delivering 100 KT to orbit, but my computer cannot handle it...

 

BUT APPARENTLY OTHER PEOPLE CAN HANDLE CRAFT THAT BIG. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG

 

 

 

* May be subject to 3 test flights for stability.

Edited by Planetace
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Well now that I've finished upgrading to 1.3.1, I'm getting the bit between my teeth to go to Jool in 129d.

This is (almost) the whole Operation Beach Head mission loaded atop my Gizmo Master Blaster.

7 removable Hitchhikers, 4 Gimlet miners, 2 Vodka fuel trucks, two Hawk landers with fuel pods and, center-stage, another Hawk with a mapper attachment.

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Only items missing are a couple of Beep satpods which will lift-off with Gizmo.  I also intend to add a bunch of Gigantor solar sails as well to provide locomotion for an Omega ion drive that will fly up on an Aquila and join the stern of the center-post (after jettisoning a single Mainsail).  And a Pterodactyl as well for Laythe.  Primary destination is Vall.

I've got time for this to be a dress rehearsal to the Mun.  When all details in the mission inventory are settled, I'll set up the same mission also on a space train comprised of at least 2 Aquila and an Omega.

And yes, I'm thinking about an 8-way version of Gizmo.  [Credit: recent image from @LordFerret]  After all, why not?  It's whole essence is Complete Overkill.

Finally, I think I've maintained my usual, grimy standard of ugliness, wouldn't you say??  :)

Edited by Hotel26
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On 3/11/2018 at 4:02 AM, Ace in Space said:

rovers don't have autopilot or time warp

As @Hotel26mentions, there is a mod for 'autopilot'. I'm not sure I would trust such a thing however, as the Mun (like so many other places) has unpredictable terrain. If this mod had some means of allowing waypointing based on taking a path of, say, minimal slopes?... then, maybe.

For time warp, I believe you can use the [Alt]+[.] form, but I don't think that's a good idea. Time warping while rovering, to me, spells "disaster imminent".

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I finally after slowly upgrading my original rocket design with unlocks from the tree, onto my fourth real rocket design, I finally managed to tweak it enough to achieve my first Mun landing!  Only to find I didn’t have enough fuel to get me home :D .  So again I tweaked the lander and after crashing once into the Mun I finally managed to return the craft. Now got to decide what to spend the science on!

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Inadvertently went to orbit on the first attempt...

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Turns out the Cloudspike is a pretty respectable pre-rapier orbital delivery mechanism. Up to two passengers to ~120km and back without so much as spilling their complementary drinks.

The engineering team are muttering about excessive efficiency and voluntary redundancies and trying to work out which of them is most useful, since they should obviously be the one to go.

(To be fair, Cloudspike's handling is a little iffy. Pitch is a bit overdone to the point of bouncy, while yaw seems to be coupled to roll for reasons I can't identify. That aside, this ship goes to space and comes back without any particular danger so long as you don't try for a dead-stick landing, so... success?)

Edited by eddiew
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Over the past few weeks (haven’t had a lot of time due to things going up a creek without a paddle at work), I’ve constructed a modular station in orbit of the Mun and have begun making shuttle flights between the station and the mun’s surface with a reusable lunar module.

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