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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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I bought and installed Making History!

I burned for the Mun in a very liberal lifter. The booster made it all the way to a polar circularization burn around the Mun.

 

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Transposed in a ballistics trajectory to the munar surface to rid myself of the booster and fairing that held my rocket design rigid during launch. Then I circularized once rearranged.

 

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Got Gravity Scan data from a polar orbit above the Mun for the Highlands, Midlands, Lowlands, Poles, Polar crater, Polar Lowlands, Highlands Crater, Midlands crater, Farside Crater, East Farside Crater, East Crater, Canyons, Northwest Crater, Southwest Crater, Northeast Basin, and Twin Craters biomes. Will land my new hopper lander next time I play.

Edited by MisterKerman
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I'm doing some engine fire test:

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The craft is named "Phoenix", it's a very low-profile SSTO

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The trail of vapor cone is amazing

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"I see you..."

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There's a reason...

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Why...

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It's named...

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THE PHOENIX!

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IT BURNS IN THE BLAZE OF GLORY!!!

Edited by ARS
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I got tired of generic terrain and figured out how to import real elevation maps into the game (using Kerbal Konstructs).

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Approaching Mt. Hood from the north.

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Round the mountain.

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Over the hills.

screenshot22By the shore.

 

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Mountain top magic hour selfie.

 

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I sent up this very large multipurpose storage module to my MOLE station. At the time I considered making it into a fuel depot so another launch was planned after this, to bring up an exosphere scoop. This little project can only be just to see how things work because the station has a polar orbit and it's impractical to use such as a launch point for missions.

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Before even starting KSP to do this, I expanded my B9PS config for stock parts to enable them to switch between nearly all Classic Stock resources. So these Kerbodyne tanks can hold nearly anything the Wild Blue parts can. I may want to make or carry a whole lot of something other than LFO in them.

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Edited by JadeOfMaar
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Did some more work on my new surface miner:

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Replaced the grey panels with 2 structural wings, which brought the part count down and made the top section look a bit better. The most drastic change however, was done on the underside:

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Changed the orientation of the ISRU and enclosed it in two adapters. The radiators are attached on them, not the ore tanks (The game was kind enough to let me drag them where I wanted). The result is a much cleaner underside, which has been bugging me, eversince I started working on this.

Spoiler

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I think I'm happy with it now :cool:

Edited by Atkara
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Yesterday, I closed out my "Take Four" career in RSS/RO/RP-1/Principia.

Not intentionally, mind you, but it was getting well into 1958, I was still flying LOX/Ethanol and LOX/Hydyne because the LOX/Kerosene engines were still under development.  I'd flown two craft to orbit, one at Canaveral's natural inclination, one to polar orbit (still with battery life problems -- those procedural avionics needs lots of power!).  I took the contracts for both sun-synchronous and solar powered satellite.  I still don't fully understand how an orbit at 95-99 degrees inclination can precess to remain aligned with the sun (the claim is that the Earth's equatorial bulge produces the necessary ~1 degree per day precession), but I can launch to the required inclination without a problem and find out later if Principia models the Earth accurately enough to make it actually work.

Except that after six launches in a row I couldn't get the booster core, both side boosters, the second stage (all RD-103, LOX/Ethanol) and the upper stage (AJ10-37, aniline/furfuryl and IRFNA) to all ignite on the same launch.  With the clock running down and funds on hand significantly less than the combined failure penalties for the two contracts, I quickly grabbed an easy contract for a crewed mission to 120 km, hoping to save the program.  As I was rolling that rocket out to the pad, however, nearly a month after the two orbit contracts expired, something else ran down, my funds hit zero, the rollout stopped, Val retired, and I was done.  I may have missed a short expiration on the "X-Plane High" mission, but I'm pretty sure it was the usual 90 days, and my vessel took only 62 days to complete; even with rollout time I should have had at least a couple weeks of leeway.

Regardless, it was over.  I salvaged the vessel designs, deleted the save, started up a new one, "Take Five" ("hard" level, except I turned off "hide unpurchased parts" to cut down the switches back and forth between VAB/SPH and R&D -- "hard" in RO doesn't make game play harder in terms of increased failure rates, reduced performance, etc.; rather, it reduces rewards and/or increases failure penalties and cuts the safety nets of quickloads and reverts), and resumed burning the fins off WAC Corporals (because the only suitable fins available at start are B9 Procedural Wing (Early), which overheat at around Mach 2).  I did find a solution, however: I stretched the propellant tanks on the WAC enough to give a ten second overburn (beyond rated burn time) on the engine.  That reduced acceleration early in the flight enough to keep the fins on, and incidentally allowed the liquid fuel stage to reach 90 km (instead of the 68-69 available with the version that burns only the rated time).

I chose "hard" because I think it'll reduce the temptation to attempt orbit too early -- it's very possible to perform early orbital missions with LOX/Ethanol engines like the RD-103, but the reliability of those engines is so poor that doing so will either require going back to grinding sounding rocket missions (very heavy payloads to fairly high altitudes, by that time) until the LOX/Kerosene LR-79 unlocks, or risk sinking the program with a long string of engine failures (as happened in "Take Four").

Meantime, I need to learn how to use MechJeb properly to manage orbital ascent in RSS.  I'm able to fly a pretty efficient gravity turn, but MechJeb ought to be able to do a better job of hitting a specific inclination, and can fly a chosen ascent path with avionics that won't permit manual control.  The times I've tried using MechJeb to control a launch, it's gone completely haywire, either completely failing to turn over for horizontal velocity, or turning over much too soon, leaving my craft near horizontal at only 50-60 km (with atmosphere extending to 140 km in RSS).  Watching Grayduster and Nathan Kell do it on YouTube isn't doing the job, so I need to find some written information.

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Kurgut low cost Space Program is proud to present the Kerbcury "capsule" featuring a brand new launch escape system. When we'll have hard time with funds, we plan to use this capsule which hold the strictly neccesary stuff to a Kerbal to survive.

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15 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Meantime, I need to learn how to use MechJeb properly to manage orbital ascent in RSS. 

Yeah, it's indispensable in RSS to have efficient ascent profiles. You should download the machenry mechjeb that have Power explicit guidance in. It will launch your rocket to any reachable orbit (like pe at 200km and Ap at 35000km) in any inclination. And the must, in a continuous burn (make sure to enable RSS handling in mechjeb settings also).

Here a link with a gamedata folder from RP-1 devs with a set of compatible mods to run RP-1, mechjeb is in:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ABwtcf2xpJnCcUKosGSAEI7li-9ENjwq/view

And here some wiki help:

https://github.com/lamont-granquist/MechJeb2/wiki

hope it helps :)

Edited by kurgut
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Meanwhile, on the surface of Dres:

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-Umm... Mission Control...?
-Receiving you loud and clear Dres Outpost, is there anything to report?
-The lander that just came in... was Jebediah Kerman piloting it?
-That's a negative, he's currently on his way back from Eeloo. Is there a problem?
-Well, the thing touched down a little bit closer than expected and we thought maybe...
-What distance are we talking about?
-According to the range finder, 18.6 meters. Any closer and we would lose our radiators.
-Understood Dres Outpost, we'll look into it. Talk to you again at the science data packets transmission. Mission Control out.

*Makes sure mike is off* Okay, which one of you gave him remote access to the lander? :mad:

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The Universe Is Deeply Mysterious!

Quantum Mechanics surmises that this is possible, but I, just moments ago, watched two craft become mutually and co-relatively invisible and pass through each other.  A very weird observation and I am still shuddering.

The vehicles had just separated for one to turn on course for a maneuver node for the Mun.  MechJeb engaged warp just as the craft had started an imperceptible drift back together again and I watched one simply merge and pass through the other!

Or vice versa!

I knew this was possible.  The same way that a de-orbited craft will not actually crash unless a) under observation! or 2) the perikee is set lower than some magic number(*)

* now scientifically determined (i.e. overheard in a bar...) to be 22km (in the case of Kerbin)

Weird all the same to see Science being borne out!?

Of course...

...the implications -- e.g. for docking on the far side of a large craft -- are huge.  ;)  Simply, uhm, teleport, as it were, over there.  Yeah?

Edited by Hotel26
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11 minutes ago, Atkara said:

I suppose so, yeah.

I mean...  I wouldn't...  It wouldn't be...  ethical.  Once, maybe, for the scientific curiosity.  Or the thrill of living dangerously.  Like if the AA batteries in the warp drive failed at that moment...  Naah....

->  :)  <-

I mean, *I* don't even use warp to stop a spinning craft, no sir.  :)

"Teleport" is probably the wrong word; I think I prefer "shimmer"...

Edited by Hotel26
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1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

I mean...  I wouldn't...  It wouldn't be...  ethical.  Once, maybe, for the scientific curiosity.  Or the thrill of living dangerously.  Like if the AA batteries in the warp drive failed at that moment...  Naah....

->  :)  <-

I mean, *I* don't even use warp to stop a spinning craft, no sir.  :)

"Teleport" is probably the wrong word; I think I prefer "shimmer"...

Wouldn't judge you (or anyone) if you did it. It's just that I tried picturing myself doing it and couldn't.

But it is possible, if one wanted to :)

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I have under 110K to my space program's name and need to figure out a way to make some more money before going on another Mun mission to the last 3 biomes. I have some Minmus contracts Lined up for planting a flag and surveying an area and other small along-the-way sort of errands. I might design a small inexpensive launcher and pod to do the job and save the program before I get the urge to spend the rest of my money on all the fancy parts I'm about to unlock with my recent Mun Mission.

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21 minutes ago, MisterKerman said:

I have under 110K to my space program's name and need to figure out a way to make some more money before going on another Mun mission to the last 3 biomes. I have some Minmus contracts Lined up for planting a flag and surveying an area and other small along-the-way sort of errands. I might design a small inexpensive launcher and pod to do the job and save the program before I get the urge to spend the rest of my money on all the fancy parts I'm about to unlock with my recent Mun Mission.

SSTO? Expensive, but you get your money back if you don't mess everything up.

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I finished my Minmus station finally.  I've been putting time limits on my launch schedule, combined with an abundance of transfer windows meant there was nearly a year between the first 2 modules & the last 3.

I kept several of the transfer stages for additional fuel storage - turned out to be a good idea since my crew transfer vehicle arrived with only about 100 m/s dV remaining.

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Crew transfer vehicle maneuvering to dock behind the center section

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After several months, the first crew viewing their final sunset in space before reentry

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1 hour ago, Kernel Kraken said:

SSTO? Expensive, but you get your money back if you don't mess everything up.

*sweats*

Edit: OKAY! I accepted a couple contracts for Minmus shenanigans for a quick cash advance to build a more capable rocket but I have a question. Can I dock to a vessel currently in orbit that predates the contract accepted to "rendezvous/dock two vessels in orbit"?

I have a sneaking suspicion that I will have to make an entirely new launch and dock that launch's payload to my current mission's payload which I launched after I had accepted the contract.

That was difficult to be concise... I don't want that misconstrued.

Edited by MisterKerman
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