What did you do in KSP1 today?

[purpleivan]

Did some testing of the Velocirover and its delivery aircraft, in preparation for an all stock entry to the Desert Derby 2018. That included a sub 18 minute flight from the KSC to the Desert Airfield.

Not super quick a time for the airbourne section of the challenge, but the rover is looking very fast.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Dear Kerm... 

I've gone too far, and awakened... the Kraken... 

 

It demands.... sacrifice...

Poor, poor Bartrid... she knew. All this time, she knew. She knew what would happen, and we would not listen!

Just look at her, Moving On with such peace and dignity, only here at the end.

Kermspeed, good Bartrid. You will be missed...
Hey, what am I, chopped liver?!?
Well, considering you just got blowed up and consumed by a manifestation of chaos from beyond reality, that's actually a pretty good analogy. 
Oh, ok...

...there will never again be any such as you, brave Bartrid.
Until I revert and try again... and again... and again... each time with the same result...
I might have a problem here...

[Tonka Crash]

Rados, Leevis and Bartrie landed on the Mun's South Pole to pick up a surface sample for analysis at the Mun Orbital Research Station.

[anoldtincan]

Worked on getting the Science Station Valentina ready for her shakedown cruise to Minmus. This involved sending up a refueler to LKO and conducting this save's first docking:

Also sent the first Antelope cargo aircraft out to a survey site.

 

During said survey, Bob got a pretty commanding view of the local cove since one of the survey sites was on a hill. The rover handled it way easier than a Mongoose or Ocelot plane could have.

I couldn't get the rover to reconnect but Archie and Bob flew home. Without the rover weight, the Antelope became the first of our aircraft to break the sound barrier.

Also did some development work in the VAB. Worked on a rocket-launched spaceplane for tourism contracts and a Minmus lander, hope to progress on those in the near future.

 

[Idgo]

Today I made my first successful High-Res full planetary map (ScanSAT) of Kerbin. Soon, I'll launch the second satellite which will collect biome and resource data.

[Mister_Casual97]

Today I'm in sandbox to take a Spaceplane up to the high reaches of the atmosphere. The kerbal way.

I use this ridiculous twin jet lifter to bring Frank (our test pilot) to the upper atmosphere.

Continuing onwards after ditching the lifter once it wasn't efficient enough

Hitting 1200 m/s in high atmosphere

Ditching the empty rocket stage

Coming close to the ocean for a landing

I managed to get down safe, although it was rough for Frank.

That's all for today. I might launch another mission soon.

[EvenFlow]

Today I have drifted a car with my feet.

[Mister_Casual97]

9 minutes ago, EvenFlow said:

Today I have drifted a car with my feet.

Would it be possible for me to download that AE86?

Just curious, of course.

[EvenFlow]

1 minute ago, X Sonic Pro X said:

Would it be possible for me to download that AE86?

Just curious, of course.

https://kerbalx.com/EvenFlow/AE86

AYE AYE MY DUDE

[AngrybobH]

I ran into some strange bug while on the Mun. I set up a supply base (MKS) in the below sea level spot of the twin craters(~-60m). After the ninth launch, the base exploded when reaching physics range. A quick reload to about 3km away (I always save right before physics kick in), the base didn't explode, instead about 200m from the surface the kraken teleported my ship 23km away. Reload again. Then I teleported 46km. this kept going and adding 23km to each attempt. I wondered if I could go completely around the planet like that. When I was on the other side of the Mun it quit working so, I decided to hyperedit to the LZ. Hyperedit freaked out and stuck my ship into a cargo container and then the whole base exploded. All 9 of the vessels(all individuals, not at all connected except for MKS logistics) went into a ballistic trajectory heading dead south. They all landed in a cluster in a place that looked like a nice place for a base. I assembled the broken remains of the base into a shanty town arrangement thinking that if a large explosion happened on a mun base and 9 kerbals survived they would have to assemble something to continue living and that something would be the quickest, messiest thing they could build.

The 2 mining ships were unscathed and landed on their legs(bugs are fun aren't they). the back side of shanty town has random girders at different heights so kerbals can pretend they are in a mario bros game while they climb to the hab.

[Mister_Casual97]

1 minute ago, EvenFlow said:

https://kerbalx.com/EvenFlow/AE86

AYE AYE MY DUDE

Thanks man!

[Starslinger999]

After my Last post the Kermes MK-I, the epic mothership I launched was attacked by the kraken after I loaded it up again. Sadly It auto-saved after the Kraken struck so now the Kermes MK-I is in pieces...

But I can rebuild it

Larger, With More dv, and with NUCLEAR ENGINES!!!!

*edit* apparently, KVV is broken with the new engine plates so it acts like a normal decoupler so it doesn't show the nuclear engines but they are in that cone fairing, like 7 of them.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Starslinger999

[Mister_Casual97]

Just now, Starslinger999 said:

After my Last post the Kermes MK-I, the epic mothership I launched was attacked by the kraken after I loaded it up again. Sadly It auto-saved after the Kraken struck so now the Kermes MK-I is in pieces...

But I can rebuild it

Larger, With More dv, and with NUCLEAR ENGINES!!!!

That's a big rocket.

[Starslinger999]

Just now, X Sonic Pro X said:

That's a big rocket.

Bigger then the last one I made

[Cavscout74]

My first manned mission to Jool in my current career arrived in Laythe orbit finally.  This is also my first career with any life support (Snacks), so it made for a new challenge.  My floating base & ground rover also arrived, so the crew will have something to do while on the surface:

Floating base descending through the clouds.  

The Lynx rover following it down.  I missed the ground base & put the rover pretty much near the far end of the island. 

It's down to 18km from the ground base now, didn't have time to drive it the rest of the way.

Transferring crew from the Laythe station to the Pumera-Laythe spaceplane.

Flag planting at the end of the landing roll.  Made a nice landing - touchdown was just past the Lancer ground base, and after a few bounces, I the Pumera stopped about 1.2km from the base.  There is a nice, mostly smooth field that slopes up gently that makes a beautiful landing spot.  The very end (where this shot was taken) starts to turn steeper, which helped stop at the end.

Chief engineer Kelrik inspecting the solar panels after refuelling the Pumera.  Now I just need to drive the rover the rest of the way so I can take the crew the 20 or so km to the coastline to meet up with the crew boat for the next 20+ km trip to the floating base.

[Starslinger999]

@X Sonic Pro X Here's the launch

I have launched the Kermes MK-II! (Because the first one was eaten by the Kraken RIP)

https://imgur.com/a/9M38aA4

Edited August 27, 2018 by Starslinger999

[Lisias]

And for today, I'm reviving some old ideas that I never used on a mission and that, now that I had to replay a lot of missions, can be of use. This is my QuadraPlane Platform for Airborne Launching - since I do not have technology to build a high altitude plane that could take-off, go really high, fly to a mission area and then go back to KSC, I'm building a X-15 style approach: a Carrier ferry the craft to the mission area, launch the thing and that's it.

Landing the mission craft can be a challenge, as some missions doesn't have an airstrip near - but with Kerbin Side and Contract Manager installed together, there're some nice opportunities for a low-tech but high-performance solution like this.

So… This is the Report for the maiden test-flight!  

(note: yeah… there's a terrible typo o the screenshots!  )

------

Carrier and X-3. Engines ignition. The Carrier is way over-engineered as it was originally built for a way heavier rockets on later missions. Since I had to rollback some missions, I choose to "tech down" some crafts. The SCANsat radar is being use to map Kerbin - I have no Tech enough for satellite surveying yet, so I do what I can on planes in the mean time.

 

Open Cockpit view while pre-flight check and taking-off:

Spoiler

 

 

This monster juggle a lot on the airstrip, I still have some work to do in order to safely take off - right now, it's a nightmare! But once I manage to get the wheels off the ground, the huge amount of thrust make her easy to climb! She maneuver as a 2nd World War fighter!

Spoiler

 

Since this is still a test flight, I don't need to fly the all the way to the target. So I commenced the pre-launch checks - I'm prone to forget action groups and tweakables when merging the crafts - and yeah, I forgot some.  

I got some very nice internal views during these checks:

Spoiler

 

Eager to capture some very nice pictures, I choose to try a launch with internal view:

Spoiler

 

That was my error. I forgot to activate the AutoPilot, the Carrier started a slightly descent and I didn't noticed.

When I launched the X-3, I also did a mistake on the staging of the engines: the first X-3 stage fired up in the same time the radial decoypler's charges blew. So the X-3 had thrust at launch, that created acceleration and lift. And I mentioned that the Carrier were on a descent? 

SO… Yeah. Tragedy. The X-3's wing-mounted engines hammered the Carrier belly and blew magnificently while the X-3 scratched her way under the Carrier and hit the Carrier's huge tail elevators. ripping them off.

And since I also forgot to activate the auto-screenshots on crashings (I'm using Automated Screenshot together the Historian), I don't have screenshots from this fantastic event neither.

Yeah, I'm hearing your thoughts. I agree!  

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 minutes ago, Lisias said:

time.

Great flarping flapjacks... it’s beautiful...  

Whats the part count on that beast?

[Lisias]

12 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Great flarping flapjacks... it’s beautiful...  

Whats the part count on that beast?

Thanks!  

About 230 parts the Carrier, what gives me 25 parts to be used on the payload. This can be trimmed, however - the "second floor" radial engines are easily detached, as well every juno that is not a joint pivot. Some of the wings can go away. as well some elevons.

A curiosity that took me some weeks to figure out. Since the payload (and not the Carrier) is, technically, the main vessel, use the radial decopuler on the payload. The decoupler assumes that the atached vessel is a booster or something like that, and the crossfeed behaves this way. So we need to attach the Carrier as it was the "booster".  

— POST - EDIT --

Tacked down some glitches on the design, and took a new screenshot on the "Second Maiden Flight"  

 

Last shoot of the week - I lengthen the Carrier and this make her way less prepense to juggle by entire airstrip. She is somwhat heavier now, but with all that thrust? Not a problem.

Simple, I should had thought it before.  

Edited August 27, 2018 by Lisias
uh. better grammars. And new Screenshots

[NHunter]

Finished assembling my long-range manned exploration vessel, which is currently loitering in LKO awaiting the delivery of landers. Will probably send it to Sarnus once everything is ready.

Assembling this monstrosity was a bit of a challenge since I decided to save on part count and didn't include any RCS - thus I had to bring two small tugs to maneuver the two parts of the ship into docking with each other.

[Starslinger999]

1 minute ago, NHunter said:

Finished assembling my long-range manned exploration vessel, which is currently loitering in LKO awaiting the delivery of landers. Will probably send it to Sarnus once everything is ready.

Assembling this monstrosity was a bit of a challenge since I decided to save on part count and didn't include any RCS - thus I had to bring two small tugs to maneuver the two parts of the ship into docking with each other.

I think were both building big ships today lmao:

[NHunter]

@Starslinger999, at least yours can be sent into space in a single launch. Mine... not so much. It has only one free attachment node along its keel*: at the top of the command module. launching my monstrosity upside down will need some insane amounts of BOOSTERS to achieve victory of thrust over aerodynamics.

* This ship has a modded Daedalus engine, which - while very efficient - is heavy (36tons, reactor needed to run it not included), unaerodynamic, useless in atmosphere and has only one attachment point. Getting that thing into space required me to build a crazy contraption of an upside-down rocket that would've fallen apart if not for a generous application of ducttape struts.

P.S. It was actually seeing your ship that inspired me to finish mine

Edited August 27, 2018 by NHunter

[Triop]

Testing a para scooter design, needs work . . .

[LaydeeDem]

Devised and carried out an overly-complicated Munar probe mission involving a ballistic capture and a payload return.

Only needed about 34 m/s of dV for the circularization burn. Be jealous.

Of course once science was done it was time to bring all that juicy data back to Kerbin. Mama needs her 2.5 meter parts!

 

So I ejected from the Mun and set up an aerobraking maneuver at Kerbin. It was around the firs aerobraking pass that I realized I forgot the parachute.

Shoot. There ended up no being enough dV left for a suicide burn, so I decided to abort the original plan and just transmit the science instead. It was still a juicy amount, but only a fraction of what I would have gotten if I had recovered it.

 

After that I built a cute little survey jet and then crashed it in Kerbin's southern hemisphere. Poor Mirick had to walk to the survey sites.

 

[Cavscout74]

I managed to get my Laythe rover driven the last 20km to pick up the crew & head to the coast for the boat ride out to the floating base.

At the coast, happily the crew boat didn't drift away

Home sweet home for the next few months - unfortunately, I kinda messed up the base design, and it only has snacks for a little over 300 days for the crew and no way to resupply itself.  Also, the buoyancy is a little iffy.  I'm going to need to another redesign on this one. 

Underwater shot of the base & crew boat

Sunset on Laythe - or more accurately, the sun set behind Jool.

Also got the soil moisture scanner into Laythe orbit.