What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Ho Lam Kerman]

Hello guys! 

Today, I launched a satellite built by a friend into a kerbolcentric orbit.

I used a Mun gravity assist (not because I was tight on fuel, but for the sake it) to sling it towards a Kerbin Escape trajectory.

I tried a super close pass to the Mun - 7km periapsis - to show my friend how it's done.

My friend requested a camera be put on his probe, so during the Mun pass I concentrated on taking pictures. 

Then the thought hit me: I could point my camera down, take pictures spaced by a few seconds each and edit them into one imaging strip, not unlike what the LRO does!

And so, here is my imaging strip:

You might notice that there are a few places where the image doesn't look right, those are where I either misaligned the images or there was a imaging glitch.

Next, I might launch a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to construct useful maps. (Or I could just use Kerbal Maps - but where's the fun in that?)

[RealKerbal3x]

1 hour ago, Ho Lam Kerman said:

I tried a super close pass to the Mun - 7km periapsis - to show my friend how it's done.

Pfffffft.

Real Kerbals (see what I did there) pass the Mun at 200m.

[qzgy]

3 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Pfffffft.

Real Kerbals (see what I did there) pass the Mun at 200m.

Pfffft. 

True Kerbals pass at 200 millimeters

[RealKerbal3x]

1 minute ago, qzgy said:

Pfffft. 

True Kerbals pass at 200 millimeters

That is known as lithobraking.

[Ho Lam Kerman]

1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Pfffffft.

Real Kerbals (see what I did there) pass the Mun at 200m.

I passed Eeloo at 150 m!

 

[RealKerbal3x]

2 minutes ago, Ho Lam Kerman said:

I passed Eeloo at 150 m!

 

Nice. Now try a super-low Tylo flyby.

[Ho Lam Kerman]

2 hours ago, Ho Lam Kerman said:

Next, I might launch a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to construct useful maps.

I've currently come up with this:

That represents a sweep of about 2-3 minutes. The center point is at -9.6680 -172.5732 (cross-referencing Kerbal Maps).

North is up. I will probably continue imaging this strip, then image the next strip on the next orbit etc.

[Ho Lam Kerman]

5 hours ago, Ho Lam Kerman said:

Next, I might launch a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to construct useful maps.

Sigh

I've been trying this the whole afternoon.

It turns out that, due to distortion, it's impossible to actually create an accurate map at northern latitudes. The craters were extremely misaligned.

Well, at least now I've got concrete proof that the Mun is round, contrary to what loony Kerbals think.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Ho Lam Kerman

[capi3101]

Compared to the last several days, yesterday was relatively uneventful. It began with the remote launch of a Glass Cannon 7 orbital mass driver module from the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus, which was destined to dock with space station Minmusport in orbit.

Man, it looks like there's a lot of crap on the ground in the area...I should go out and clean all that up...

The module arrived and docked successfully at the station. I discovered that, despite my protestations to the contrary yesterday, I could indeed operate the module's SAFER reactors on enriched uranium alone. Dual mode reactor, it turns out. I still can't make nuclear fuel for a refill but at least this way I can give the station the additional power it needs to run it during the nighttime hours, so I should be able to make mass driver shots at Minmus now.

With both the Glass Cannon modules in place at their respective space stations, my focus turned to the construction of orbital shipyards over Mun and Minmus. I discovered that the printing of a Dystopia Planitia 7 yard with a Mun surface-to-orbit booster would take more Rocket Parts than either Deepwater Horizon or the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun had the capacity for, so I went ahead and printed up a trio of additional warehouses at both bases and attached them successfully, and began in-situ RP manufacturing. While that was ongoing, I printed up a Mosquito 7 probe lander at Piper Alpha.

Ah, night screenies. Always great at showing everything except for what it was you wanted to show off in the first place.

The Mosquito was designed with one purpose in mind - to conduct surface scans of the various Mun biomes in order to find one where I didn't have to cheat to build another Pathfinder outpost on Mun. The Mosquito landed in the Highlands, Midland Craters and East Farside Crater, all of which turned up negative for suitability (which in this case means 'suitable to make Equipment on site using a Pathfinder foundry', or the presence of both Exotic Minerals and Rare Metals in the same biome). An attempt to land in the Canyons this morning went awry and the probe was destroyed at that point, so another one will have to be printed up in the near future. Seven biomes have been scanned in total on Mun - so far none are suitable. Once the Mosquito had finished printing, I had the RP necessary to begin the construction of the Mun Dystopia Planitia station; it will finish up in six days. I still have to figure out a plan for staffing the outpost once it's built. Once it's up, I intend to construct a Stevie Wonder 7 solar telescope in orbit in order to conduct a specific experiment for which I have a contract. Again, staffing of the telescope will be a concern.

In other news, pilot Gregald Kerman returned from the Mun safely aboard the G-LOC 7 RTK craft printed at Piper Alpha, and engineer Haydorf Kerman was retrieved safely from Minmus's orbit using the Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe built at DH. Haydorf along with tourists Derble and Marus Kerman were then promptly sent to space station Kerbinport aboard an Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane, docking there safely this morning. The three Kerbals transferred to Strange Cargo docked at the station (eventually - apparently I had reverted a quicksave that undid the ship's docking a few days ago; had to go get it docked this morning) along with Jeb (who took operational command), Val and tourists Sarah, Rado, Anger and Phobrett. At that point, Strange Cargo undocked from the station and a trans-Munar burn maneuver was set up. The ship will make that burn in a little over twenty minutes from now.

Today I hope to begin printing up the Dystopia Planitia over Minmus leading to a launch, finish major construction of/at Piper Alpha, and send Jeb and company on to Mun. I also need to print up a new Mosquito. Hoping to clear some long-standing contracts in the near future.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

12 hours ago, qzgy said:

Pfffft. 

True Kerbals pass at 200 millimeters

I see you also watch Bradley Whistance:

344 cm.

[NHunter]

I'm still alive, apparently.

And since I was caught unprepared for 1.6 update, I'll be playing my 1.4.3 OPM career while waiting for mods to update. And, here we go.

First of all, KSS Discovery has finished her mission on Laythe and is transferring to Val.

Even with nearly a 1 degree of thrust offset, the ship is still capable of keeping itself pointed at maneuver. Hooray for overpowered reaction wheels and high-gimbal-range nuclear engines!

At the same time, a mapping satellite performed the first of five maneuvers that will take it from Bop to Pol:

 Meanwhile, nothing of interest has been happening with KSS Voyager. She is still drifting towards Sarnus, currently somewhere halfway better Dres and  Jool. 380 more days till arrival...

 

Edited December 20, 2018 by NHunter

[eddiew]

Had a busy few days, but finally got a few minutes to document my first Duna shot of this career

Having made Minmus runs, it was clearly time to move further afield for more exotic sciences. Checking with the boffins, mission control found out that the time to launch was right now... or probably yesterday, but right now was close enough. Assuming the engineers could cobble together something that would make the trip in the next few hours.

Rather to our surprise, they did. Since future kermanned missions will likely begin at the equator for fuel reasons, mission control decided to drop the Dunemite on the planet's north pole, which turns out to be an absolutely delicious shade of pink. Which means we're very much now considering a polar expedition in the future, but we'll probably have to prove the hardware with a simpler mission first.

Also it turns out Duna has a moon, and is verging on being a binary system. We've aimed our observatory at this dark companion to see whether we like it.

[Lisias]

I decided to test some mods I maintain (officially or not) on KSP 1.6 . Then I did this when I failed one of the tests...

Boy…. I'm mean.  (she survived, by the way - Kerbals are incredibly resilient!)

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by Lisias
updating image url

[Cavscout74]

Well, first this happened:

After a few seconds of panic, I figured out I accidentally started KSP twice, and it somehow caused this, I exited both & carefully started only a single copy & everything was normal.

Then I made some changes to my Falcon II spaceplane to attempt to correct the loss of yaw control & subsequent loss of 15-20km of altitude late in reentry.  I upped the control authority on the rudder (from 50 to 75), and added droop wingtips to hopefully give a little extra directional stability.  I also added a pair of small flaps for extra drag on reentry & some extra lift on landing.

The changes were partially successful - I still lost control, but it wasn't as violent, and I regained control after "only" losing not quite 10 km.  I feel like I might have been able to prevent it entirely, but I was slow to retract the airbrakes & counter the start of the yaw.  Here, it's regaining a little speed after regaining control.

Final approach to KSC, landing went perfectly smoothly

I also launched my Duna Express ship for the upcoming Duna transfer.  Jeb & company will board shortly before the transfer window.

In order to complete the "return to Kerbin from a fly by of Duna" contract, the crew compartment detaches for reentry, while the rest of the ship has a probe core to reestablish orbit for a more proper disposal of the NERV.  Most likely by crashing into Mun.

Finally, I ran a few more passenger airline contracts for some extra funds, and fine tuned the airliner I built yesterday.  I put a little more angle of incidence on the wings, a little negative angle on the elevator & tweaked the engine position.  The wing & tail changes allowed me to cruise almost 10 m/s faster at 8km for the same throttle setting.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Cavscout74

[Plane Crazy]

Just designed this compact VTOL skimmer.  It should attach nicely to the side of a lander.

[ARS]

Just doing some shenanigan with "speed" and "heat"

Without using HRP (Heat Resistant Parts), this craft would've blown up before even leaving 5000m

Look at that speed, time of flight and altitude!

In orbit flight log concludes that... The G-force of this craft SHOULD make those G-tourists blacked out

That's it, test completed. Time to bring those tourists aboard...

[Raptor42]

19 hours ago, capi3101 said:

 

Ah, night screenies. Always great at showing everything except for what it was you wanted to show off in the first place.

Where did you get that heliport on Minmus, Kerbal Konstructs?

[putnamto]

jeb almost got himself killed tonight, foolish fool.

had a contract to send a sat to minmus, and instead of building a new sat i just loaded one of my launch vehicles that fit the bill, launched it, completed the contract and decided to see how low i could make the orbit before it hit something and blew up.

right at the lowest point in the orbit 6k on minmus i realized jeb had hopped along for the ride, didnt have enough fuel to get him back, and i the ship isnt return freindly, so he's currently in a weird orbit around kerbin waiting for me to rescue him, IF i do, getting tired of his games.

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

1 hour ago, putnamto said:

-snip-

@Matt Lowne This sounds like a job for the Blunderbirds!

[capi3101]

4 hours ago, Raptor42 said:

Where did you get that heliport on Minmus, Kerbal Konstructs?

Nope - it's from Pathfinder. Specifically it's the Rangeland extraplanetary launchpad, and if you have the Extraplanetary Launchpads mod installed as well, it lets the base function as a remote construction/launch site as well. it's pretty nifty.

 

Well, 1.6 dropped yesterday (as I'm sure most of you are aware by now). Can't say I'm happy about that; I waited a full month after 1.5 dropped before switching over, and that was just over one month ago. I was still expecting to have another month in 1.5.x, honestly. Means the thirty day countdown has begun and I'll have to decide whether or not to start afresh (as is traditional for me) or continue my current career save. Given that I've just now gotten my Kerbin SOI infrastructure set up, I'll probably have to continue, which is a shame - the early game really is the most fun part, IMHO.

Also means I'm going to have to start tagging my posts with "1.5.1" for the next month. Ugh.

Anyways... </rant>

 

Screenie-less day for y'all, I'm afraid. After printing up the necessary RocketParts to do so, construction of a Dystopia Planitia 7 orbital shipyard commenced at the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus. Construction is scheduled to take two whole weeks to complete. Castillo modules were installed at both Deepwater Horizon and the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun, effectively bringing principal construction of the two outposts to completion (finally). Definitely have learned a lot about the inner working of the Pathfinder mod in the process; I'm hoping I can apply that knowledge to help those out there who, like me, have dealt with some frustration with its mechanics. 

So with that done, it was time to get back to business. After departing space station Kerbinport, the ferry ship Strange Cargo made a burn for Mun with Jeb, Val, engineer Haydorf Kerman and tourists Derble, Marus, Sarah, Rado, Phobrett and Anger Kerman aboard. The craft arrived in the Mun's SOI 3 hours and 40 minutes later and then affected docking at space station Munport. Pipeline shots between Piper Alpha and Munport occurred to refuel Strange Cargo, after which Sarah, Anger and Phobrett visited the surface in the station's Spamcan 7a lander. The lander returned to Munport with the tourists, after which Jeb, Val and Haydorf made their way down to Piper Alpha. The three Kerbals planted some temporary flags on Mun so they could punch their experience tickets, and then Haydorf joined the staff at Piper Alpha, replacing engineer Sulan Kerman (who herself is the subject of an as-yet-unfulfilled rescue contract). Sulan's final task at Piper Alpha was to install a KAS resource transfer station, which was used to refuel the Spamcan for return to Munport.  Sulan, Jeb and Val then returned to Munport. Haydorf punched her ticket at PA, raising her to two-star experience and causing a large boost in the outpost's overall productivity rating (which was the plan - something I'm quite happy about). Once the three returned, all tourists and staff re-boarded Strange Cargo and the craft departed, burning for Kerbin. Successfully docking at Kerbinport was acheived this morning and Sulan, Marus and Sarah boarded a waiting Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane also docked at the station. The plane has undocked and will conduct its deorbiting burn to land at KSC in about another one-third of an orbit. Another Pipeline shot between Piper Alpha and Munport took place as well, this time refueling the Spamcan.

Nothing else happened yesterday except for a test to see if I'd created a working template for Oxygen storage with Pathfinder, involving the installation of a new warehouse at the Swamp Castle outpost near KSC. The test was unsuccessful, and I'll be taking steps to see just what went wrong at the next opportunity. Meanwhile that warehouse is working as spare electrical charge storage for the outpost.

Pretty slow day overall, honestly.

[JadeOfMaar]

4 hours ago, Raptor42 said:

Where did you get that heliport on Minmus, Kerbal Konstructs?

Over here:

 

[RealKerbal3x]

I made a cute little rover with the Mk2 Lander Can's new bare variant. This will likely see service on the Mun.

Jeb approves:

[JadeOfMaar]

I played some science last night in 1.4.5. I actually spent all my science gathered so far (it's not much. I'm only at tier 3 in the tech tree and I'm not farming the KSC. I've reasoned that the KSC is as horrible a cheat as Minmus science and the stock science lab).

However, I did have to cheat the plane over here a few times as I could not be bothered to legit fly it over. That's time I don't need to spend watching the same scenery pass repeatedly and so close to the KSC.

And this happened while drifting on the beach. The surface FX reached all the way down there from exactly where the plane is as you see it.

[Shadowmage]

4 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

And this happened while drifting on the beach. The surface FX reached all the way down there from exactly where the plane is as you see it.

LoL, looks like there might be an issue with the water-effects in KSPWheel (from the Adjustable Landing Gear).  If this is a repeatable problem, would you mind filing a bug report with logs / list of mods used / steps to recreate? 

[Cavscout74]

5 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Well, 1.6 dropped yesterday (as I'm sure most of you are aware by now). Can't say I'm happy about that; I waited a full month after 1.5 dropped before switching over, and that was just over one month ago. I was still expecting to have another month in 1.5.x, honestly. Means the thirty day countdown has begun and I'll have to decide whether or not to start afresh (as is traditional for me) or continue my current career save. Given that I've just now gotten my Kerbin SOI infrastructure set up, I'll probably have to continue, which is a shame - the early game really is the most fun part, IMHO.

Also means I'm going to have to start tagging my posts with "1.5.1" for the next month. Ugh

You sound about like me.   My 1.5.1 career is a few weeks from launching it's first interplanetary manned mission, and I'm not ready to quit it yet.  And I always start fresh with each game version.   I am excited about the new lander can, though, so I may have to at update the steam copy to 1.6 to tinker with.