What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Hotel26]

Got to the end of development on this rendition of Brikoleur's fabulous Bumblebee VTOL trainer.  Purpose was to enable conventional horizontal flight capability.

This version is published as Bumblebee Redux, with the original author's kind permission.  It's capable of 205 m/s at 4km with a range of 340 km and a hover ceiling of 3,300m.

I will additionally be publishing my Honeybee 6-crew Mk2 VTOL machine during one of my upcoming routine weekly posts to KerbalX...

"VTOL rocks!"

Edited November 2, 2018 by Hotel26

[Cavscout74]

10 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Nice going!  2x RAPIERS(?) and a NERV, I presume?  What is the all-up take-off weight?  And what have you named it?

Yes on the the engines.  Fully fueled, it's 30.3t.  After takeoff, best to hold about 5 degrees above the horizon till past mach 1, then you can gradually ease it up to at most 10.  There isn't enough oxidizer to burn closed cycle all the way from 25km to orbit - O2 runs dry around 50-55km Ap & 2000-2100m/s, then the NERV takes it the rest of the way.  If everything goes right, you'll have about 2000 m/s dV remaining on the NERV at an 85km orbit.   Tentatively, it's going to be the CS-08 Lightning.  It's also so close to stock that I'm planning on making a full stock version for upload to kerbalx

Another test flight. 

Testing the "ER" version with ferry tanks for the Jool transfer & a reentry pod for the pilot.  There are nowhere near enough snacks on board for even a single pilot to take it to Jool, so after taking it out of Kerbin's atmosphere & refuelling, the pilot jumps in the pod for a quick return to KSC.   The first test of the "ER," I somehow managed to accidentally delete the right shock cone intake - and only figured it out when I was nearly in orbit, with a 15 degree inclination from the drag pulling the nose hard right & only ~400 m/s dV remaining on the NERV.   I just reverted that & fixed it.

In addition to testing the new SSTO, my career first Jool crew arrived in Laythe orbit, docked with the station & hopped down to the surface in my old SSTO design

 

[Jett_Quasar]

I haven't posted in a while but I've been working on some random designs...

 - Jett

[anoldtincan]

Did some orbital cleanup - decommissioned two early game Mun scanners, one of which involved a 2-km spacewalk to grab the last science results:

Also did a Kulan-rover survey in the tundra. At cruising speed of about 150 m/s, these missions take a long time.

Third, launched my first resource-hunter satellite in this game. Headed to minmus, it is also my first use of the monopropellant engines, which I haven't seen before this save.

This RO-5 satellite is on the way to Minmus to begin prospecting for the soon-to-launch Minmus Base Camp.

Have you ever hired a Kerbal you knew deep down was just bad luck and would have a bad time of it? Allow me to introduce Brooke Kerman.

First mission, take one tourist to orbit. I built a new Pipistrelle rocket, and loaded up Brooke to take the tourist. Got a flight computer on it this time so I won't make the same mistakes that killed Verlan.

Soon after launch, the rocket oversteers and begins to tumble. Nothing even induced from the Launch Failures mod. Brooke aborts and lands successfully back at the KSC, but it took three approaches to the runway to get her down. Not off to a good start.

(this pic was snapped right after the booster crashed to the left of the runway, you can see the secondary explosion/bright spot obscured by the contrail.)

The Pipistrelle is a good spaceplane system, at only 50k funds per unit and 2/3 recoverable stages. But now it's flight record is 1/4 successes, and I'm beginning to think I may need to re-approach my tourism program.

Anyway, next task for Brooke is a mid-air crew report survey over the Northern Ice Shelf. Tired of spending 45 minutes or so IRL on single survey missions, I rolled out the KA-5 high-G trainer/tourism aircraft (designed but never flown for lack of contracts), revamped it into a single seat, long range basic science aircraft.

the KA-5-S Weasel cruises at Mach 1.05 or so fully loaded, and hit a top speed of Mach 2.19 after the draggy external fuel tanks were dropped.

Aftter a rapid flight north, Brooke completed the surveys with no issues.

In less than an hour of flight time Brooke had touched down back at KSC (about 15 minutes at time warp). But the Weasel had a high stall speed, thanks to the tiny wings, and as soon as a tapped the brakes the plane careened off the runway (KSP wheels strike again) and killed Brooke. Her career was unlucky and short.

I netted some 120k funds for the survey contract, at the cost of a 19k fund plane and one unlucky Brooke. The road to the stars, in this save at least, is paved with dead pilots.

 

Edit: Photobucket watermark? urgh. Will try to fix but I don't want to pay for photo hosting. Any suggestions?

Edited November 2, 2018 by anoldtincan

[razark]

8 minutes ago, anoldtincan said:

Any suggestions?

Imgur

[Geonovast]

51 minutes ago, anoldtincan said:

Edit: Photobucket watermark? urgh. Will try to fix but I don't want to pay for photo hosting. Any suggestions?

Literally anything else.  First Photobucket pulls the hosting ability and holds everyone at an extreme ransom to host.  So what, now they're letting you do it for free with that overkill watermark?

It's like they think they're the only ones doing it.

Imgur is popular.  I use Cubeupload, but mainly now because it drives @Gargamel insane from false spyware notifications from Malware Bytes.  If you're using Steam, I understand you can link directly from the Steam screenshot system as well.

[NHunter]

I've been working on my heavy-lifter sky-crane (mostly so that I can land a EPL workshop on Ceti - that thing clocks at just under 15 tons when filled with rocket parts, and I'll need those to begin the construction of the surface base). And since it was getting quite big already, I decided to slap some high-power solar panels onto it and then keep it as a source of power for the fledgling base until I can get either fuel cells or nuclear reactor up and running.

And it still doesn't have enough torque in those reactions wheels (there is fifth one (upscaled to 3.75m) in the central part of the ship) - they can't rotate the skycrane while it's landed on Gael.

-----------------

@anoldtincan, I'll add mediafire to the list of suggested image hosts. It might not be a dedicated photo hosting site (it's a generic-file storage service), but you get 50GB of space for free and you can link images from there. I've been uploading all of my KSP screenshots there and it's been working just fine.

[THEdragon]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

I use Cubeupload, but mainly now because it drives @Gargamel insane from false spyware notifications from Malware Bytes.

Ah, so I'm not the only one who keeps getting those notifications.

Last night I gave my first WIP mission to @DjPreside to play-test. Turns out that one of the vessels that was meant to spawn failed to do so, and one of the objective routes was completely broken! Today I'm going to try to fix these errors. Perhaps I'll see about getting HyperEdit to make the play-testing process much less tedious.

[Guest]

Tooled around with my new VTOL toys.

I tried to build a VTOL SSTO, because why not? My first attempt failed; I just couldn't get enough grunt on it. Then I got frustrated and just swapped out the engines on the Drakula: Wheesleys for R.A.P.I.E.Rs, and what do you know, it fairly leaped for the sky. All it needed was an adjustment to the fuel balance and a couple of extra tanks which it could easily loft, and there you are. It's not fully spaceworthy yet so I haven't published it, but if I ever figure out why I would want a VTOL SSTO, well know I know how to make one. (Maybe I want to deposit Renfield on a hilltop on Laythe?)

I did some other tweaks to the Drakula and updated the craft on KerbalX. It looks better and maybe performs a little better now. I really like how it turned out -- it's a ton of fun to fly and you can land it pretty much anywhere.

I also tooled around with an even bigger VTOL, something built around a Mk 3 cargo hold with a loading ramp. Doable. I don't like the handling yet and it feels like it has a bit too much hover power and not quite enough regular thrust. But I'm confident that if I want to pursue that design, it will work. It's a shame about the looks, I've never managed to build anything around that cargo ramp that doesn't look like utter donkey.

I played around a bit with Goliaths and while they look totally outsize on this one, they did kind of make me want to build something really outrageously big. Maybe I will one of these days.

[DeltaDizzy]

Check the stats.

[Superfluous J]

It's just a beta test and it failed, but still...

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, DeltaDizzy said:

Check the stats.

What’s the payload, 280 great big hunks of lead? 

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

It's just a beta test and it failed, but still...

I’ve heard of flying bricks before, but that’s just ridiculous. 

[DeltaDizzy]

Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

What’s the payload, 280 great big hunks of lead? 

260 Monoprop tanks, for its 3km/s deltaV.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 minute ago, DeltaDizzy said:

260 Monoprop tanks, for its 3km/s deltaV.

Well, I was close. 

Surely there must be an easier way?

[Superfluous J]

8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I’ve heard of flying bricks before, but that’s just ridiculous.

We choose to land an asteroid on the KSC runway not because it is easy, and not because it is hard, but because it is ridiculous!

[DeltaDizzy]

8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Well, I was close. 

Surely there must be an easier way?

That didnt end well.
 

Spoiler

 

[Gargamel]

7 hours ago, Geonovast said:

false spyware notifications

You say they're false... but I haven't gotten any viruses after malwarebytes starting blocking it!

[Geonovast]

2 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

You say they're false... but I haven't gotten any viruses after malwarebytes starting blocking it!

Which would be the case.... if they're false...

 

[LaydeeDem]

Sent a resupply mission to my career mode space station. Burman, Siory, Madrigh and Bob now have 27 days of food,  58 days of water, 102 days of oxygen and 16 days of nitrogen. I forgot to undock my previous resupply so I deorbited it while I rendezvoused. Not very safe but it looked pretty cool!

 

I juggled that with a mission from Minmus that was returning. The need to get Clauster and Maubart Kerman back before their oxygen ran out resulted in a rather... unorthodox reentry profile:

 

Under normal conditions, the lander section is supposed to seperate...

Thankfully the two managed to recover from G-LOC in time to deploy the parachutes. Successfully returning 742.9 science back to Kerbin.

[GearsNSuch]

A while ago, I ferrying the last of the Kerbals back from the Mün. Two tourists, a rescue, and one normal kerbonaut. The vessel with the two airplane cabins is the one we're talking about.

One of the tourists spotted a sticky note floating inside. He claimed it read "Remember to pack pastrami."

Okay...

As we were re-entering, everyone realized something was missing... Not "pastrami," but "parachutes." Apparently, tourists can't read anything other than food names. Great.

Well, impromptu SpaceX time...

We landed successfully (with two seconds of fuel), forgot to turn off the engines, shot into the air, and landed again.

Those cabins have insanely high impact tolerance.

We still got paid, so a happy ending.

Also, post No. 50. Hooray.

[putnamto]

accidently sent a tourist ship with two tourists and good ole (insert pilot name here) to the moon, landed and didnt have enough dv to get back.

so i sent bill and a probecore up to hopefully land close enough to the ship and use KIS/KAS to attach an extra full fuel tank to the ship and fill it up......this did not go as planned.

first bill landed like this, i thought all was lost, but then i hatched a clever plan.


take the ship apart and roll one of the full fuel tanks to the other ship. (700 meters, at less than 1 meter/s..........sigh)


tank attached and ready to transfer fuel


Stay vigilant hero


it actually might be all for naught though, the returning ship has an ap of slightly less than the muns orbit around kerbin, and a pe of 55km, and no fuel, well see what happens after a few hundred orbits.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

It's just a beta test and it failed, but still...

What in the... I don't even... this is the most Kerbal thing I've seen ... like ... ever 

[putnamto]

7 hours ago, Nutt007 said:

Sent a resupply mission to my career mode space station. Burman, Siory, Madrigh and Bob now have 27 days of food,  58 days of water, 102 days of oxygen and 16 days of nitrogen. I forgot to undock my previous resupply so I deorbited it while I rendezvoused. Not very safe but it looked pretty cool!

 

I juggled that with a mission from Minmus that was returning. The need to get Clauster and Maubart Kerman back before their oxygen ran out resulted in a rather... unorthodox reentry profile:

 

Under normal conditions, the lander section is supposed to seperate...

Thankfully the two managed to recover from G-LOC in time to deploy the parachutes. Successfully returning 742.9 science back to Kerbin.

That  texture  pack! What  is  it?

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

What in the... I don't even... this is the most Kerbal thing I've seen ... like ... ever 

You may want to check the link in my signature

[Tonka Crash]

Jebediah and Bob took a break to go site seeing. After posing for a photo, they realized no one brought a ladder to get back in their plane.