What did you do in KSP1 today?

[MaverickSawyer]

8 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

This... is new.

*vidsnip*

Jeb seems to be enjoying the show just as much as we are.

[Geonovast]

It's STILL DOING IT.  I time warped twice, the first time it froze, then fired right up.  The second time it just did it faster.

[Cavscout74]

Had a few projects going today -

Moho tanker heading out from Kerbin (along with a lander, another tanker & Moho Station)

My career first Jool probes are starting to arrive - somehow this survey sat arrived a good bit ahead of EVERYTHING else & established orbit around Laythe

I gave up on aerobraking my E-class asteroid for now & launched a factory ship to start processing it & get it moved into a useful orbit.  Woomerang made for the easiest launch site to match inclinations

Finally, I started tinkering with a new high-speed airliner design.  It needs final tweaking, but it's to the point of being flyable & landable.  Next step will be to check it's range.  It's a little light on fuel as-is, and I'm not certain it will do the round trip KSC - Desert strip - KSC for passenger contracts.  On the other hand, it will haul 2 crew + 20 passengers at several times the velocity of my Dash or Big Dash airliners.

[Triop]

9 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

It's STILL DOING IT.

[Triop]

Construction:

This is cool, the runway parts are from Maritime pack mod.

I can place runways everywhere I want now.

[qzgy]

Downloaded KSP 1.6  for an off forum challenge and put some of the necessary mods on it. While the paragliders are cool and dv readout kinda neat, it crashed, something that hasn't happened to me for a while. Oh, and landing gear are borked compared to 1.3. And I found the parts a bit ugly.

I think I'll still live in 1.3 for a while.

[MaverickSawyer]

Finally got around to launching the first of at least four tankers I'm going to use to refuel the THAAD...

First stage was a S-IC, which carried it most of the way to orbit.

The tanker itself runs two RD-180 clones from BDB. Rendevous was achieved in under an hour, and the tanker was left in stationkeeping mode just alongside THAAD due to time constraints. Actual fuel transfer via KAS hose reels will happen shortly. I'll make sure to share pics of that soonish.

PS: Gotta hand it to @CobaltWolf and his merry crew of @Jso and @JadeOfMaar... those new exhaust textures are FANTASTIC!

[Triop]

40 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Downloaded KSP 1.6  for an off forum challenge and put some of the necessary mods on it. While the paragliders are cool and dv readout kinda neat, it crashed, something that hasn't happened to me for a while. Oh, and landing gear are borked compared to 1.3. And I found the parts a bit ugly.

I think I'll still live in 1.3 for a while.

I'm in 1.6 now, running BDA, Nebula, vessel mover, maritime pack and tweakscale without problems.

Textures are indeed not the best.

To be honest the best feature I love is I can set bases as targets and the helmet removal thingy.

It's not bad so far but he, if it works, it works.

[MaverickSawyer]

Follow up time. Finally got KSP up and running and finished the mission...

I am officially in love with these hose reels and the flexibility they provide... transfer rate, not so much. 

Station keeping is quite easy, especially when fully loaded. When nearly dry, using the vernier thruster mode (the blue needles on the lower left) is adequate... just make sure to leave SOME fuel aboard for the RCS!

Aaaand some behind the scenes stuff, showing the transfer system in action. Yes, you're limited to 20 units of resource per second, regardless of the number of hose reels.

 

Post mission debrief has resulted in the decision to add either a ladder or a rover seat for the engineer to sit in during fuel transfer operations... I burned through a LOT of EVA fuel just trying to stay nearby.

[eddiew]

Having caught this year's winter cold IRL, I'm running a bit slow with KSP, but since lying down is worse than sitting, I might as well sit at the PC. So I might as well continue this Duna mission...

The crew draw straws (except Val, since we only have one pilot) and Erin, Astra, and Val board the DEV. Transferring all but a wisp of fuel from the transfer stage, they begin their descent towards a comfortable looking spot on the Dunan lowlands.

With the Bullfrog parked outside the front door, the team waits for the next sunrise to begin their journey across the long, dusty dunes towards the ice-cream cap.

Bullfrog, it turns out, handles the Dunan surface admirably. With a cruising speed of 24m/s, he never shows more than 6% loading on any given foot wheel. Despite his tall bearing, his wide stance keeps him stable on even the most hairpin of turns.

(I use Bon Voyage to autopilot the long hops because I have better things to do with my life than look at 305km of nearly identical red soil... Given that this is a large, pressurised rover, I don't feel guilty about the multi-day expedition. If I'd gone with my original plans for a micro-rover with command seats, I'd have set a range limit of around 100km and disallowed it being used at night. All of which together probably means that in future I will be aiming at larger rovers for rapid planetary exploration.)

Upon recovery of the sample, the team are somewhat disappointed to discover that it is not vanilla. Or any kind of taste worth putting in your mouth.

But then, it has clearly been cast aside from the ice-cream caps and it IS just lying here in the dust, so it's probably gone bad. Setting course for the next waypoint, the team prepare to set off once more.

Also today's bonus shot; Duna is really dusty sometimes!

12 hours ago, Triop said:

This is cool, the runway parts are from Maritime pack mod.

I can place runways everywhere I want now.

Meaning Laythe/Duna/Eve/other-atmosphere-bearing-spherical-rock?

Edited January 5, 2019 by eddiew

[TrooperCooper]

2 hours ago, eddiew said:

(...) With a cruising speed of 24km/s (...)

 

Yummy! Escape velocity rover!

 

[eddiew]

Continuing the exploration of the northern ice-cream cap...

Despite the rather quirky design, Bullfrog's long legs allow the rover to climb over sharp angles in the terrain that would beach something with a more conventional chassis, while the complete absence of anything in front of or behind the wheels means that nothing but tyres ever touches the ground. It is possible to wedge this rover into a crevice that needs some backing out of, but on the whole it really does a good job of handling the ruts and ridges of the Dunan polar region. We have asked the engineering team to continue supplying quirk.

The biggest worry turns out to be power. While Bullfrog has plenty of juice in the sunlight, there are all kinds of slopes and furrows near the pole where there simply isn't any sunlight. Ever. Power needs to be carefully managed as the rover darts from one patch of light to the next.

And no I didn't change the colours of the Explorer's valley. It has quite honestly landed in an extra-pink patch x) 

Erin has come to suspect that Dunan ice cream may react badly to oxygen. By mutual agreement, the team seals the Explorer Valley samples to ensure that they remain uncontaminated and therefore in perfect condition when they arrive at the lab, avoiding any contact with the rover's internal environment.

Waving the booping probe farewell, they head for a mysterious spire on the horizon; a literal mountain of ice cream, clearly caused by a great upwelling from somewhere deep under the Dunan crust.

Unfortunately no light can penetrate the depths of the lacto-volcano, so an extended stay is impossible. Valentina plants a flag at the source reading "Valerintra Confectionary Ltd. No unauthorised access."

 

 

1 hour ago, TrooperCooper said:

Yummy! Escape velocity rover!

Lol, my bad, edited

 

Edited January 5, 2019 by eddiew

[capi3101]

Not much accomplished since my last report, but then again since my last report covered two weeks worth of stuff, I don't mind so much. I have a screenie if that helps...

(1.5.1) Yesterday afternoon saw the final positioning of the Kerbincomm India communications satellite in its 74-day orbit on the edge of Kerbin's SOI. Kerbincomm Hotel, the final satellite in the Kerbin SOI comms network, still has another 45 days before it reaches final position. Hoping I actually get it in place before I switch over to KSP 1.6 here in a few weeks.

With that done, my attention turned to printing of a Muad'dib 7 Alcubierre mothership at the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyard over Kerbin. Fulfillment of the ship's order required slightly over 20,000 EL RocketParts; the Swamp Castle outpost near KSC had a capacity of just over 5000, so three new Pathfinder Chuckwagon modules were printed up at the base and engineer Beamon Kerman went out to attach them to the base. Unfortunately, the Kraken has long-threatened to eat the base, and chose that moment to strike; all three of the new Chuckwagons blew along with the single RocketParts Chuckwagon already attached to the base as well as one of the dedicated power 'wagons. Fortunately, when I saw the Kraken preparing to strike, I had the good sense to send up the base's entire inventory of RocketParts to DP via mass driver, so no resources were actually lost. It did necessitate a re-start of the game and a reprinting/re-installation of the 'wagons, which was done. The necessary RocketParts were printed and shot up to Dystopia Planitia, and station engineer Dr. Leah Braums......er, Jergar Kerman...began construction; the Muad'dib 7-type craft LSV House Harkonnen is expected to take 10 days, 4 hours and change to complete (the name is in partial homage to my last Alcubierre-drive ship, the Heighliner 7-type craft MSV Fat Man from v. 1.3.1).  

Meanwhile, rescuee scientist Ribsted Kerman had taken a trip out to the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus the day before, with me having forgotten that the SCSS 7 garbage-retreival craft that station engineer Sulan Kerman had taken down to the surface the day before was only a single-man craft. I got Ribsted back over to space station Minmusport just in time for the arrival of the ferry ship Next Objective, which put into dock at Minmusport shortly thereafter:

Next Objective arriving at Minmusport.

Next Objective's arrival precipitates an extended series of surface excursions, with all nine Kerbals aboard the craft needing to go to the surface for flag-planting training. After that, the ship will be heading back to Kerbin to drop off a few newly-frocked two-star crewmembers while heading on to the Non Caseus Yards over Mun to drop off the crew of a new Munar outpost. Their craft is ready to go at this point, so that mission will get underway as soon as the crew arrives. While they are there, I can send two other Kerbals down to give Sulan some help; no need to send a rescuee if I can at all help it. Dumb-ass engineer Ceri Kerman might be left at Minmus so that Ribsted can get a lift home (that's not necessarily meant disparagingly - her attributes include "dumb = 0.965911329"). At two-stars experience, Ceri should be a little more useful than she was in the immediate past with running a Pathfinder outpost.

Anyway, ten days and I'll have a new warp ship. At that point, I get to face the challenge of fueling it up with exotic matter - those things don't come off the press pre-loaded with fuel, after all. I think I can get to a good position for final full fueling over Kerbol with as little as 200 units of exotic matter. Still going to take a while to generate the prerequisite amount of power, though. Xenon's going to be another fun resource on which to load up, methinks - especially seeing as I have yet to unlock Ion Propulsion...

[TrooperCooper]

 

The lander-egg leaving the KSS Kolossus in Eve orbit, taking three of the six grand tour Kerbals on the landing attempt...

 

 

It dipped into the atmosphere and soon was engulfed in flames as Jeb, Bill and Stelmy raced towards the first Grand Tour landing...

 

 

They made it through the heat and after a shaking descent into the thicker parts of the atmosphere, the chutes began to pop out...

 

 

Chutes fully deployed, removal of protective casing and heatshield...

 

 

After a successful touch down next to a piece of the casing, the landing team put down their flag...

 

 

Primary objective achieved, now it was time to get back into orbit...

 

 

The heavy ascent-stage propelled the lander up... the strong aerodynamic forces kept Jeb pretty busy on the W-A-S-D-keys.

 

 

At 24,000 meters the atmosphere was thin enough that the Karborundum based Torch-Drive could take over...

 

 

After burning into orbit, soon the Kolossus' rotating ring structure came into view...

 

 

And the landing team docked up, now preparing to make the small hop over to Gilly together with the rest of the crew...

[cantab]

That rover design is quite something @eddiew !

As for me, failed to reach orbit in RSS. I'm out of practice.

[Lisias]

22 hours ago, Geonovast said:

This... is new.

[video cut by me]

**THIS** is real reason I play KSP. (yeah, dark confessions on the way.  )

[Pthigrivi]

That's a great execution @TrooperCooper 

[NorthernDevo]

On 1/1/2019 at 6:21 AM, Hotel26 said:

Have just finished the nuptials with Esprit:  (click the screenshot and use right arrow for a slide show)

  Hide contents

 

 

 

I am very excited and happy about this one!

No kidding; you should be - that is one GORGEOUS aircraft! Nice job!

[Espatie]

I just rescued a Kerbal from the debris of her craft in LKO for the first time. That was awfully hard work. There must be a better method than I was using.

 

The whole operation was not helped by a mistake with the rescue orbiter meaning that it was a bit unstable moving laterally under RCS. Definitely some design and testing to be done there.

 

Also, new rule: the rescue orbiter should be absolutely covered in ladders. In fact, I might try and make a web of extending ladders to catch EVAing Kerbals.

 

Also, Lights. Lights are a thing that should happen.

 

Still, welcome to the team Bobert Kerbin, an exceptionally stupid (& quite cowardly) Engineer. Nice to have another girl about the place though.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Espatie

[Lisias]

Do I have to say the words??

And that flying thing above? On the tip of the smoke trail? It is the engine cluster. And it made it to KSC - without me.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Lisias
tyop!

[MaverickSawyer]

1 hour ago, Espatie said:

I just rescued a Kerbal from the debris of her craft in LKO for the first time. That was awfully hard work. There must be a better method than I was using.

 

The whole operation was not helped by a mistake with the rescue orbiter meaning that it was a bit unstable moving laterally under RCS. Definitely some design and testing to be done there.

 

Also, new rule: the rescue orbiter should be absolutely covered in ladders. In fact, I might try and make a web of extending ladders to catch EVAing Kerbals.

 

Also, Lights. Lights are a thing that should happen.

 

Still, welcome to the team Bobert Kerbin, an exceptionally stupid (& quite cowardly) Engineer. Nice to have another girl about the place though.

Ahhh, rescue contracts. Word of advice for the RCS... RCSBuildAid is a LIFESAVER.

EVA manuevering is... an acquired skill. It'll get easier with time. Though I still think that there should be a stock thrust limiter available, so you can really throttle back the RCS when on orbit for precision, but still open it up all the way for the Mun or those awkward moments when you forget a ladder on your Duna lander.

[Zosma Procyon]

I added the 5th segment to my Spindle Station. It is now about 110 meters long.

Here is the segment moving in to position, controlled by Mechjeb of course.

Spindle Station is really living up to its name. 

[NorthernDevo]

I started a whole new game with new rules.

The title of this game is "Duna or Bust!" - the goal is pretty much as described.

The rules: Hard settings, with starting funds set to zero. No save, no revert (of course). Life Support in use, MJ to be used for routine work and basic control only - no auto ascents, transfers or course changes.

This is because a well-handled manual ascent is  both much more satisfying than just watching, but also better on fuel and I really need to watch my fuel now. 

This has so far been quite challenging; progress has been maddeningly slow with Science hard to obtain and parts - and building upgrades - bloody expensive.

Reaching the first 3 standard missions was easy enough; I ran several test missions to build up enough funds to upgrade the launch pad and the Astronaut Complex. Since then, it's been a constant grind of VIP missions, test missions and any observation missions I could reach with a Hammer SRB pushing me - I'm as much worried about saving money as I am making it.

All through the night it was shooting tourists off one after the other on top of a Thumper for endless sub-orbital flights to build up cash. I've managed to open 3 of 5 spots on the 4th. level (45 Science each) at R&D and been sending Rollers all over KSC to scoop whatever science I can nab.

Important safety tip I just learned: don't use a Materials Bay as one end of a Science Roller. It doesn't end well.   

Anyhoo; it's bed for me; I'm on night shift this week. Dawn is breaking over KSC so in about an hour of game time I'm going to make my first orbit. With the Launchpad upgraded that will be easy, at least. 

In the meantime, the view the tourists were getting from their little Mk1 was totally awesome:

 

[HCF]

Worked on my school project where I try to do the BFS style landing with a python script (like Scott Manley did), but with KSP 1.4 and Infernal Robotics - Next instead of the old one.

[AngrybobH]

I just recently came back to KSP and decided to check out the unofficial continuance of FAR. So, I'm just building airplanes in sandbox mode that have no real purpose. Here's my favorite so far.