What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Servo]

Yesterday, I finalized and released by B-58 Hustler

And I edited up some nice screenshots.

In case you ever wanted to explore the thermosphere in a jet-powered aircraft...

https://kerbalx.com/servo/Convair-B-58-Hustler

[Cavscout74]

I started off with a Pol landing - actually last night.  My lander/relay combo arrived in the Jool system at just about the worst time to intercept Pol.  I got a nice flyby of Tylo to save dV on entering Jool orbit, but then had to wait something like 2 more months, and 2 maneuvers to actually get a Pol intercept.  But all that is done, the relay portion is in a near polar orbit while the lander came down well above the equator, so communications should be good most of the time

 

Then my Duna Flyer arrived in Duna orbit & attempted to land.  Caught a nice sunrise during entry:

Unfortunately, "Duna Flyer" was a poor choice of names - "Duna Faller" would have been a better choice.  Once it slowed down below several hundred m/s, it just started dropping.  I didn't have enough pitch control to get the nose up, and, well, its a good thing it was unmanned:

Finally, I made final tweaks to my CF-05 Firebar fighter-bomber.  It turned out I didn't need a 3rd engine, I needed extra air intakes for the 2 original engines.  The MRS basic jets have the same air intake requirements as the Wheesley.  I knew something was wrong when the performance on 3 Juno's at 20 kN each was better than on 2 MRS basic jets at 40 kN each.  Once the extra radial intakes were added to the original design, top speed picked up at least 60 m/s - with external ordnance added.  Pictured here taking off fully armed - 4 external fuel tank bombs & 1 internal.

As it turns out, a direct hit on the VAB with all 5 was enough to take it down.  First time I've ever intentionally destroyed a building in career mode.  For future reference, I should just make a target vehicle & park it out in a field.  Over 500k funds for the repair was an unpleasant surprise.

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Cavscout74

[septemberWaves]

I sent a kerbal to orbit 3.2x scale Kerbin for the first time in this save. Details can be found here.

[capi3101]

(1.5.1, T-1 day to 1.6.x) I began my afternoon yesterday with the completion of the printing of the SCSS 7a garbage collection craft at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus. The craft was fueled and scientist Kathald Kerman along with station engineer Sulan Kerman boarded it, subsequently landing near the target object, which turned out to be a MOLE laboratory. The area was very hilly and I landed at night, so I decided to wait until daylight to attempt retrieval. It turned out that I couldn't retrieve it anyway. I had misread the mission parameters - the target weighed 2.5 tonnes, not 1.5 tonnes like I'd thought - and wound up being short a kerbal at the site...

The gravioli wave experiment ongoing at the Stevie Wonder 7 solar observatory over Mun was finally completed, and at this point all I need to do to finish out the corresponding contract is to send the results back to Kerbin. On a similar vein, a pair of ice cream experiments finished up on Kerbin, and in their wake I picked up another outpost mission for Mun and a contract to put fifteen colonists out at Deepwater Horizon on Minmus. The payout on the colonization mission was huge - nearly √90M on final completion - and I wasn't about to pass it up. An Auk VII 16-passenger spaceplane was launched to space station Kerbinport carrying colonists Dunfred, Matpond, Mitlorf, Shepry, Gildock, Lekin, Gwenuki, Anemy, Carcas, Sigzer, Gemner, Isazor, Tanmon, Aldlorf, and Loble Kerman aboard, docking successfully at the station.

One of these years I've got to get around to flipping the docking port around on the VII design. I'm just glad the mass driver's not longer than it is...

Eight of the colonists boarded Next Objective docked at the station, while the other seven were offloaded to the station's hitchhiker modules. Tourist Chadsey Kerman and rescuee-pilot Janpont Kerman loaded aboard the Auk, which then returned safely to KSC 09. 

With Strange Cargo already on assignment and the Dystopia Planitia shipyards in LKO already in use, it was necessary for me to launch a new Superfortress 7 ferry ship - Necessary Evil - the old fashioned way. Pilot Adler Kerman and scientist Frovan Kerman, the two resurrectees from the demise of the Swamp Castle outpost near KSC, manned the craft as it made its way to Kerbinport. 

"Launch a rocket from the surface of Kerbin". What an utterly novel concept!!

Once the rendezvous with the station was set, Next Objective departed Kerbinport and her transfer burn for Minmus was set up. Necessary Evil arrived and docked safely, and the remaining seven colonists were loaded aboard. The plan is for Next Objective to make her transfer burn to Minmus and then for Necessary Evil to depart the station and conduct her transfer burn on the next orbit.

But by far the biggest news of the day is what was going on with LSV House Harkonnen's historic mission to Duna. Having reached the required position for ramp-down and final warp to Duna, Harkonnen proceeded to do so.

LSV House Harkonnen en route to Duna, having just acheived light-speed.

The craft arrived over Duna, inadvertently encountering Ike on her way in. A corrective warp was required upon arrival to slow down enough, but eventually the ship settled in to a stable 320 kilometer equatorial orbit.

Hey great, we're here! Now, where's the urinal?

Upon arrival, the first order of business was to deploy the Pink Noise 7 communications satellite carrier that the crew aboard Harkonnen had printed during the transit. 

Pink Noise 7 departing from LSV House Harkonnen's drydock.

The probe went into a target orbit over Duna and then the two sub-satellites were deployed, taking 2 hours and 40 minutes to deploy into their final positions and setting up the planet's initial comms satellite constellation (Dunacomm Alpha, Dunacomm Bravo and Dunacomm Charlie) in the process. Meanwhile, the crew aboard Harkonnen began printing up the ScanSat Duna survey probe and the ship warped into a polar orbit. That probe was also completed and released, an an initial survey of Duna for colony sites took place. The ship's crew is now printing up another Pink Noise probe to finish up Duna's comm satellite constellation (Dunacomms Delta, Echo and Foxtrot), a process which is scheduled to take approximately two days to complete. At that point, what happens next will be largely dependent on the number of Rocket Parts the ship is still carrying at that point - if the craft has enough to print up a Hellhound 7 rover and skycrane, it will do that. Otherwise, another Pink Noise will likely be printed up, this start setting up the Ikecomm network - I already have the exploration contract to orbit Ike, so that makes sense.

With the need to construct additional craft over Duna apparent and with the ability to do so, construction of a new Muad'dib 7 Alcubierre Drive mothership began at the Dystopia Planitia shipyards over Kerbin. LSV House Atreides will be complete in approximately ten days. I've already come up with a plan to more easily fill up her exotic matter tanks; the design of a capacitor bank - dubbed General Electric 7 - took place this morning, though I still need to either design a booster or a transfer stage for the craft; haven't decided which just yet.

Today I plan to get Next Objective and Necessary Evil on their way to Minmus. Strange Cargo is just about there with her tour group, so I may be working on those today as well, and Harkonnen will continue their initial conquest of Duna as well.

Some other things have happened today, but I'll leave those to report with tomorrow's log.

Edited January 18, 2019 by capi3101
fixing typos

[Triop]

Interception

 

[NHunter]

The second batch of crafts had arrived to Niven, and I finally got to plant a flag on that rock.

Good thing, I'd added that extra stage to my lander. Without it, It'd probably be too fuel-starved to enter a stable orbit and rendezvous with the tanker I left up there. And without refueling it wouldn't have enough dV to leave Niven's SoI and go back home... Anyway.

Edited January 17, 2019 by NHunter

[Martian Emigrant]

Tried for the last few days to sent the "Twinstar" to Dres but failed to get there with the fuel on board (Repeatedly).

Not sure if the tankage was too small or if I am a bad driver... I vote for the later. Though the ship always rotates and the fanthom forces could be throwing it off. IDK. Maybe.

 

So I finally decided to send it to Minmus.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Build it they will come.

 

The Twinstar Hotel resort on Minmus is open for business.

 

D

Edited January 17, 2019 by Martian Emigrant

[eddiew]

Day 17. Eve continues to look the same everywhere.

...so yeah, a waypoint in a lake. Smooth move, cartography! Pay attention to the altitude maps next time please.

On the up side, the massive lake surrounded by mountains is surprisingly scenic, especially when the sun is low to the horizon. The wash of green makes it almost seem as if one could take off their helmet and smell the flowers.

Fortunately nobody does.

Also, @Shadowmage was kind enough to tip me off that by assigning Scorpio's wheels to a group, any adjustments would happen to all of them. Switching gear is now 8x faster than before!

Also the crew are starting to think they have evidence that the universe is a simulation... Best not send that photo to the papers!

Edited January 19, 2019 by eddiew

[Geonovast]

This has taken me quite some time, but I finally pulled it off in a way I'm mostly happy with.  The wacky waving launchpad was from one of my many designs for getting this done.

I reused a Falcon 9 style booster twice without ever recovering it.  Could be done indefinitely if I was more experienced FMRS.

 

[JadeOfMaar]

I had a blast with this first probe for Gael's moons. The launcher is quite possibly an SSTO but rather than try for a stable orbit before staging, it was used to gain altitude to make it easier on the Terrier-driven upper/kicker stage to circularize, plane change, and push most of the way to Iota, then the true transfer/return stage took over. So there were three stages under the probe body. (Those three booster tanks on the 1st stage don't decouple).

The LV's engine is, I think, one of the fancy sustainers from @Well KNES mod. All of the experiments visible below are also from that mod a bunch of experiments (mostly from KrakenScience, also from Well) on the opposite side of the girder... The visible microwave oven is also KrakenScience.

I had the option to leverage the Iota flyby to do a Ceti flyby as well but I spent all my science points and found myself quite impatient... I did not  want to wait the extra 80+ days with practically nothing to do in-game and waiting on this to return so I could unlock the big (or the majority of) spaceplane parts. Finally I did this 1km/s burn as to lesen the risk of the probe body flipping and/or melting at possibly 5km/s due to being slightly unbalanced, losing control during plasma blackout, and the experiments being unshielded from airflow.

But the payoff was great at 2000+ science points.

 

Spoiler

Well this was quite entertaining too.

 

Edited January 18, 2019 by JadeOfMaar

[Cavscout74]

After the total failure of the incorrectly named Duna Flyer, my second Duna crew arrived shortly after & landed at the existing Duna base.  The Lynx rover at least survived it's landing, so they have some mobility to explore the local area:

Landing wasn't too bad - <200m from the base.  The fact that the base is wheeled makes refueling much easier

They found the sole surviving piece of the Duna Flyer about 20km north of the base.  I tried to recover it, but it blew up in the process of moving it over to the rover

After cresting a hill, I was treated to this view while driving back to the base:

 

 

 

[Pthigrivi]

Woo! My Jool colonization mission w/ LS finally underway. Unlike SOME people I like caravans.

First up the Juno, a Laythe mothership:



Some POIDH construction shots:

Spoiler

This guy took some boosters...



Everything ships up dry, then gets topped off from the Minmus mining op:



Laythe Seabase module,



And taking up the caboose, a VTOL mining and science rig:



Deploying and spooling up...



And we're off!




 

Next up, the Lionfish, a Bop, Pol, and Tylo lander that converts into a Vall mining rig:


 

Spoiler

Hoisting the lander:



Tacking on the orbital fuel depot and centrifuge module,



Loading crew and topping off,



Damn those Liberators COOK.



A whole new wooorrlllddd!


 

And some support craft including a VTOL SSTO shuttle for ferrying supplies and modules to and from the colony on Laythe:


 

Spoiler

Arrival of the SatPack at Mark Strand Station,



The trick with shipping Laythe shuttles is they're built in low ISP airbreathing engines. So I decided to park a nuclear powered tug in the shuttlebay for transport:



Snug as a bug!



This one pushes out to Minmus first to get topped off:



And the SatPack, a hunk of 11 survey and communications satellites to fan out across the Jool system:






 

Somehow this save has taken nearly as long in real time as in-game time. Not sure that's a good thing.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[MaverickSawyer]

Not much to report...

• Successfully inserted the Minmus mapper into orbit, and it's now doing its thing from 760 km above datum.
• Launched a space station to Minmus. Successfully inserted it into orbit.
• Brought home the Soyuz that had been docked to the Salyut aft port following the deorbit of the Progress yesterday. Another 1-star crew, ready for action!
• Launched TKS-ER-1 to Minmus on a somewhat hotter trajectory than my unmanned missions... ~3.5 days rather than the usual 8.5. Val, Maucal, and Stelgun Kerman aren't arguing about the speed of the flight, though... They're quite looking forward to gathering some minty science over the next few weeks.

[ARS]

Nothing much to do today, just doing some BDA dogfight test

[Pipcard]

Landed a probe on Laythe (more pictures here)

[putnamto]

did some more work on my mining base, 
landed the 5x ISRU module sideways and somehow was able right it in an almost professional looking way.
moved it to the base site to discover that my storage module decided it wants to roll onto its side every time i load it, after an hour of fiddling with it i was finnally able to turn it upright again.  turns out the big storage container thats part of KAS doesnt like to sit on the surface.
 

 

 

[NorthernDevo]

Still on the Hard career path - grinding science from the Mun; slowly upgrading one contract at a time.

To take a break, I've selected the "First Flyby of Minmus" mission which I've been putting off while science-ing up.

6 days into the transfer earned ol' Jeb a gorgeous Minmus sunrise:

This flyby culminates (in about 15 minutes) with a ground-skimming 9km. pass of the Equatorial Highlands, followed by a quick burn to bring the KPe back down to atmospheric altitude.

This will be Jeb's final mission; from here he takes over as Chief of Testing Operations, KSC. 

Bob's final mission comes next; conducting an exhaustive orbital survey of the Mint Frosted Moon, and then take charge of Research Integration.

Val will fly her last flight to the surface of Minmus, then be named Commandant of Kerbonaut Academy.

Bill is currently retired from active duty, overseeing the design and planning of the DunaStar mission - the mission in which all four will be reactivated for KASA's landmark journey to another planet.

Cheers!

Edited January 18, 2019 by NorthernDevo

[capi3101]

(1.5.1; 1.6.x Launch Day) Yesterday afternoon and evening wasn't as eventful as I'd hoped it would be; my lack of activity can be attributed to television watching, which is not something I can honestly say for myself very often any more...

First thing that happened after yesterday's report was Necessary Evil's delivery to space station Kerbinport.

 
Necessary Evil's core booster discarded and ready to burn for re-entry, with Kerbinport in the background. Yes, of the screenies I took yesterday afternoon, this is the only one that was remotely interesting-looking...

The ship affected a successful docking at the station, after which seven colonists bound for the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus boarded. Next Objective, which had departed the station immediately ahead of Necessary Evil's arrival with another eight Minmus-bound colonists aboard, conducted her burn to Minmus, with Necessary Evil departing Kerbinport and doing the same one orbit later. Both ships are due to arrive in Minmus's sphere of influence in 4.5 days.

The SCSS 7a mission to retrieve a MOLE laboratory from the surface of Minmus was scrubbed on account of there being insufficient personnel available to lug the thing onto the craft. The craft made its way back to the Non Mentha Yards orbiting Minmus, where scientist Kathald Kerman and engineer Sulan Kerman bailed out and jet-packed their way back inside the station. The SCSS was then maneuvered back into Non Mentha's drydock, the recycler unit was activated and the craft was broken down. With colonists on the way to Minmus and an extant need for a high-capacity passenger lander in the area, a Crater Maker 7 8-passenger lander was ordered up at Non Mentha; printing of this craft finished up this morning and the craft has already made a burn for its delivery to space station Minmusport. In related news regarding preparations for Minmus's colonization, a Mineshaft docking tube was ordered up at Deepwater Horizon and was attached to the outpost's exterior near its launch pad. The Mineshaft will hook up specifically to the Crater Maker to allow the tourists to offload to the outpost. Better that than piping them out or shooting them over via KAS winch cable...

LSV House Harkonnen's mission over Duna continued with the completion of the printing of a second Pink Noise 7 communications satellite carrier. The Pink Noise was released from Harkonnen's drydock and burned to its target apoapsis. As of this morning, the craft is approaching apoapsis for circularization, at which point the sub-satellites will separate and be deployed to their target positions. The whole process should take no more than three hours, at which time Duna will have a completed communications network. Harkonnen is printing yet another Pink Noise probe at this point, which will set the initial comm satellite network over Ike. Printing of this probe will take two days to complete. I'm considering sending Harkonnen to Ike directly - the next exploration contract is to orbit Ike - but I'm hesitant to do so, since the Pink Noise can also handle the contract and I'm pretty sure the next exploration contract will involve landing on Duna...

Not much else of note happened. Strange Cargo arrived in the Minmus sphere of influence yesterday; a plane change burn to align it with Minmusport took place this morning. A transfer stage for the nascent General Electric 7 XM jump-start craft was added and one of these craft was ordered up at the Non Caseus Yards over Mun, the SCSS 7a was redesigned to increase its crew complement from two to three kerbals, and a deliverable MOLE laboratory RTK craft dubbed the McFeely Sr. 7 was designed; one of these will be printed up at NCY once the General Electric is finished, with the task of delivering a gravioli wave experiment from the Stevie Wonder 7 solar observatory over Mun to the surface of Kerbin. The General Electric, when completed, will be heading over to the Dystopia Planitia shipyard over Kerbin when it's ready, where construction of LSV House Atreides is underway. If all goes according to plan, the GE should have sufficient megajoules available to pump-fill Atreides to 270 units of Exotic Matter before it leaves drydock, which would be enough to get the new ship close enough to Kerbol to finish filling its XM tank.

Today is my scheduled launch day for 1.6.x - I suppose officially I can say "1.6.1", since that's where the game is at. I'll be going through my mods one by one as time allows today to check to see if they are working, and if so, I'll make the switch at some point. Normally I would start a new career save with a new version, but I feel that my 1.5.1 career save is just now getting good, so I'll break with tradition and continue my save in the new version. Y'all will have to let me know if the devs have done anything particularly cool or annoying with the early career game...

[GarrisonChisholm]

See that?  25km off target, but I made it to this beautiful valley where I need to do my biological experiments.

Anyone care to guess what is NOT going to be happening?  :|  Experiments.  Or anything.  The last command I sent was to apply the breaks when I caught some air at 20 m/s.  Unfortunately, the probe core - like an idiot - was mounted right at the front there.  Where there is nothing now.  :|

Sigh...

[Delay]

I tried out some things and answered some (two) of my own questions:

1. Is the Twin-Boar or a Mainsail better? (The first one is better as it has a higher thrust, which means more fuel and an extended burn time)
2. Is it better to perform a boostback than to simply keep burning until your trajectory hits land again? Depends, I'd say yes. Mostly because it takes less time to do and it's directly at the KSC, so ~100% refund in career mode.

[Magzimum]

I rescued my poor Kerbals. I'd call this schoolbook rescue. Better not go full throttle though, even on those tiny engines.

Mission was a complete success. All targets achieved. Only mission control kept piling new missions into this one flight until it ran out of dV.

[Delay]

Launched a satellite. The contracted orbit was close to the Mun and rather inclined, so I thought "Why not use the Mun as a means to save dV? It can take care of raising my orbit and incline it too!"

Why not? This is why not:

It took hours to fine tune this trajectory! And all of this for this tiny satellite!

 

On the other hand, the maneuvers combined took less than 1600m/s of dV, but I don't know if that's a good result or not. I reckon it is - raising apoapsis, raising periapsis and then doing a plane change surely takes more than 1600m/s, right? You need over 800 for just the apoapsis.

[Triop]

I've just finished building my last bridge for my upcoming Elkano tour.

We still need a few more tests and then we are ready to go.

[Geonovast]

Messing around with Kopernicus for the first time.  Given my current playstyle, I want to play in a universe with a lot of bodies very close together.

I may have misplaced a 0.

[GDJ]

1 minute ago, Geonovast said:

Messing around with Kopernicus for the first time.  Given my current playstyle, I want to play in a universe with a lot of bodies very close together.

I may have misplaced a 0.

 

Yeah....maybe.

Does it scrub the atmosphere? Does it light up? That should be neat to see!