What did you do in KSP1 today?

[stargazer424]

Tedfry Kerman was doing an EVA, working on repairs to the C.O.O.P.E.R Space Station, during an eclipse:

 

So they shut the stations lights off for a selfie;

 

 

[Zosma Procyon]

16 hours ago, cantab said:

Nice. That's some big wing, guess that's what it takes to fly slow. Regarding the control, I wonder if the airframe isn't helping though, in my experience tailless deltas are tricky to make fly well compared to a design with a seperate tailplane.

Not tailless. It has a standard delta wing for a vertical fin.

[Pipcard]

Y45, D300 - Aquamarine probe cluster docked in front of the WiM-16 miner/transfer stage. Headed for Urlum (Outer Planets Mod).

Y45, D319 - Burning for 27 minutes

Will arrive in just over 6 years

 

[Stewcumber]

I just messed around with rotors a bit today. I made quadcopter.

OK now I know it is possible to generate enough lift, can I make it move forward and backwards?

No. The torque from the "forwards" propellor rotated the craft. Which creates a problem for me as real helicopters use a tail rotor, perpendicular to the main rotor, to counteract torque. My single rotor engine at half power managed to spin me around despite having in effect four "tail rotors" perpendicular to the tail rotor...

Then I thought I'd have another go at making a plane finally.

40m/s! Feel a bit like the Wright Brothers with this slow, frame of a plane.

I also found out I can map the torque amount for engines to the main throttle using action controls, which will help immensely.

[KerikBalm]

30 minutes ago, Stewcumber said:

OK now I know it is possible to generate enough lift, can I make it move forward and backwards?

No. The torque from the "forwards" propellor rotated the craft. Which creates a problem for me as real helicopters use a tail rotor, perpendicular to the main rotor, to counteract torque. My single rotor engine at half power managed to spin me around despite having in effect four "tail rotors" perpendicular to the tail rotor...

 

Real life quad copters can go forward, so can KSP ones, I don't see why you felt the need to add another prop. Also, you effectively have zero tail rotors, not 4. 2 are along the axis of rotation, and can produce no torque to counter the rotation. two are away from the axis, but presumably both producing forces in the same direction, cancelling them out.

You seem to have a front and back prop, why not make them counter rotating? In Ksp, counter rotating props are the way to go/the simplest and easiest solution.

[Yeet_TheDinosaur]

I landed on the Mun for the first time but my ship fell over while I was on a EVA with Jeb. I am suspecting a Kraken attack or the landing gears. So yeah, I stranded Jeb in my first go.

[capi3101]

@Stewcumber, I agree with @KerikBalm - your quadcopter needs to have two blades rotating clockwise and two rotating counter-clockwise in order to cancel out the induced torques; I've got a setup like that on my Echo Flyer. Ideally, your fore-and-aft blades would spin one way and the port-and-starboard blades would spin the other (doesn't really matter which way you set it up). Do that and you should be able to fly it pretty close to the same way you'd fly a helicopter in KSP.

Now, learning to 'copter in KSP is a whole other matter, of course. All I can suggest there is practice practice practice. And don't over pitch/roll in any single direction.

Edited June 20, 2019 by capi3101

[Flibble]

Attempted to launch a heliosynchronous satellite, S1 fired nicely and it cleared the tower:

Sadly S2 suffered an ignition failure engine and the vehicle was lost.

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, capi3101 said:

@Stewcumber, I agree with @KerikBalm Ideally, your fore-and-aft blades would spin one way and the port-and-starboard blades would spin the other (doesn't really matter which way you set it up).

Ideally, the front left and back right rotate the same direction, while the front right and back left rotate the other direction...like a real quadcopter.

With axis groups, you can increase torqe on two that rotate the same way, and decrease torque on 2 that rotate the other, to yaw it without pitching or rolling it. Likewise you can increase/decrease torque on the front/back or left/ right to pitch or roll it without yawing it

[FahmiRBLX]

3 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Ideally, your fore-and-aft blades would spin one way and the port-and-starboard blades would spin the other (doesn't really matter which way you set it up).

Well, doing how the Airbus A400M did could also work; 1 & 3 clockwise, 2 & 4 counterclockwise or vice versa.

Anyways, did anyone tried feathering propeller blades using the deploy option available on the control surface?

Edited June 20, 2019 by FahmiRBLXian

[KerikBalm]

Yes, for a long time, back with the pre-robotics stock rotors

[kerbinorbiter]

Recognise it, take a closer look....

that mod somehow still works fine

oh also i had a booster landing...sorta

tis' but a scratch could be reused to be honest...unless the tanks ruptured

[Geonovast]

5 minutes ago, kerbinorbiter said:

oh also i had a booster landing...sorta

Gridfin hydraulic pump froze, eh?

[kerbinorbiter]

25 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Gridfin hydraulic pump froze, eh?

didnt even do boostback...no failures here just splashdown but the booster survived mostly

[Geonovast]

3 minutes ago, kerbinorbiter said:

didnt even do boostback...no failures here just splashdown but the booster survived mostly

Oh... so you weren't cosplaying B1050.1...

[Cavscout74]

I made another attempt at an intermeshing rotor helo.  This one almost worked.  Unlike the first attempt, it actually moved & started to leave the ground.

Which turned out to be a mistake

Then I took care of several tourist contracts - a heavy lander to Minmus with 4 tourists & a pair of rookie kerbonauts went first.  Then I had 4 more just wanting a quick flight to orbit, which I launched out of Woomerang, pictured here after staging

Finally, there was another group of 4 tourists to the Mun, along with another rookie pilot.  I encountered (for the second time now in 1.7.2) something odd:  When I EVA'd the pilot for a quick flag planting, his EVA thrusters didn't have enough power to lift him off the ground.  Even jumping, I couldn't get him back to the cockpit hatch.  I finally managed to climb the lander till I eventually got to the hatch.

My biggest accomplishment though, was getting my career first satellite into Moho orbit.  

 

[Frank_G]

8 hours ago, Yeet_TheDinosaur said:

I landed on the Mun for the first time but my ship fell over while I was on a EVA with Jeb. I am suspecting a Kraken attack or the landing gears. So yeah, I stranded Jeb in my first go.

The fun of rescue missions. Have fun

[panarchist]

So... 6 years of playing KSP, and I'm only just now playing a stock career game. (base game plus both DLCs) I've managed to upgrade the Astronaut Center, Hangar, and Launch Pad, and Mission Control to step 2. I've gotten my kerbals into space, but not orbit, and managed to unlock 5 or 6 tech nodes. This makes for some interesting designs, especially since I decided to fulfill a surface contract for pressure measurements on the other side of Kerbin. So, I built the Flea:

which Jeb and Valentina crashed several iterations of, until I lengthened the fuselage and made some other changes. I was finally able to get the Flea Mk. IX around the other side, flying all night, to complete the contract just after dawn, local time.

and yes, 2 of those jet engines were staged and ejectable. It seemed like a good idea in the SPH, less so in flight. I managed to get 90k funds total out of a 15k plane, though, so it was still a win.

[Stewcumber]

6 hours ago, capi3101 said:

@Stewcumber, I agree with @KerikBalm - your quadcopter needs to have two blades rotating clockwise and two rotating counter-clockwise in order to cancel out the induced torques; I've got a setup like that on my Echo Flyer. Ideally, your fore-and-aft blades would spin one way and the port-and-starboard blades would spin the other (doesn't really matter which way you set it up). Do that and you should be able to fly it pretty close to the same way you'd fly a helicopter in KSP.

Now, learning to 'copter in KSP is a whole other matter, of course. All I can suggest there is practice practice practice. And don't over pitch/roll in any single direction.

I've got two of the four "lift" motors spining clockwise and two spinning anticlockwise already (I had an r/c quadcopter at home and have mounted the wrong blades on the wrong motor a couple of times!). Without the forward and backward props it hovers just fine. The issue is just moving forward causes the craft to roll, when I would have thought the four "lift" blades would counter the rolling as they're rotating perpendicular to the roll....?

But yes I think it will just be easier to put counter rotating props for forwards and backwards movement!

[KerikBalm]

I

10 minutes ago, Stewcumber said:

The issue is just moving forward causes the craft to roll, when I would have thought the four "lift" blades would counter the rolling as they're rotating perpendicular to the roll....?

Nope, its not that "simple"/ it doesn't work like that (in real life either).

On another note, today I got a tilt rotor to 160 m/s, and after some tweaks, it could lift a rockmax 64 tank (36 tons), with a top speed of just over 100 m/s.

It can be fuel cell powered, but it makes it to the island airfield with about 40% battery. It has significant solar power, and comes in just under 100 parts.

[KerikBalm]

Pics of my latest tilt rotors. The first was a twin nacelle designs with 2 heavy rotors in each nacelle, each driving 2 bladed props... they start in an X, but have no way of maintaining relative orientation (doesn't really matter, just for looks in screenshots), it was pretty fast:

It could lift a rockomax 64 tank, but it had trouble transitioning to forward flight, the engine nacelles tended to rip off when trying to transition to forward flight, so I wasn't getting much over 50m/s when it was loaded:

Since all the load on two servos was a bit too much, I went to a 4 nacelle design:

Which had a respectable top speed when loaded with an "orange tank" (a somewhat outdated term now...), and could get to the island airfield with 30-40% battery to spare without turning n fuel cells:

Its very sluggish in response during hover, only 2 or 3 large reaction wheels. I'm going to configure a 2nd action/axis group configuration to control it by differential torque on the rotors, like quad copter drones do.

I have the impression that its a little slower than the twin nacelle variant, but that one didn't get much about 150m/s by the time it reached the island airfield either:

and this was getting over 150 m/s with a significant (not huge) climb, so we'll see. Next to test on Duna and Eve

Edit: Eve tests:

Spoiler

With a payload, on eve:

Testing a descent configuration:

Next configuration, props fully feathered:

and then rotated and re-feathered

Lifting and accelerating a payload from sea level:

Testing out a small rotor diameter variant... it has less performance, but the rotors are less prone to disassembly when operated outside their AoA, RPM, and rotation bounds.

Spotted a pancake dome, landing by it:

Original higher performance design, with payload, and successful trasition to forward flight:

Just about maximum speed with that payload (without it, it was going well over 90 m/s)

props feathered, preping landing sequence:

nacelles rotated, props refeathered, 

Nice and slow roll out landing:

If this weren't a dummy payload, it could roll on/roll off now:

This really opens up new avenues in Eve exploration.

Cruising around in light planes at around 100 m/s, with heavy payloads at over 70 m/s... sure beats rovers.

Solar power is attenuated a lot, I may ditch most of the solar panels and rely on fuel cells only, with some batteries and back up solar just in case, but not nearly so many as I have right now

Edited June 21, 2019 by KerikBalm

[Chris Hopkins]

So last night I mostly just grabbed the screenshots of the last week or so of play; so this last week I have been:

Playing with my new spaceplane - I call it polo, the ship with the hole:

(MK II shown above, MKI below). Works really well for payloads that won't fit in a cargo bay, you just widen or shrink the two main bays to make space for your payload and it seems to work.

I forgot to get a screenshot of it with the fairing in place. However it works on some payloads without a faring:

 

Spoiler

it looked really pretty taking off at night - I thought at the time I had medication interfering with the alcohol

 

 

Lands okay too, if the pilot had not been drinking at the time:

I've been using it to carry up ore tanks for my spacestation/reprocessing/fuel depot I'm currently building

You can see hinges have made that much easier to launch (seen here with the 3rd stage still attached, just after docking, before I transferred all the spare fuel into the main tanks and dumped the 3rd stage)

You can see how I seem to have hit an odd bug with the hinge moving through the girder - I did not launch it like that! It gets worse later so that I can't open my arms fully:

This has really broken my design as where I planned to attach the ore tanks doesn't work, so I'm having to use some docking ports I planned for another purpose. After attaching the ore tanks I updated to 1.7.2 and the error got even worse:

That's them now at their full extent, so I'm having to do a bit of a redesign of the station because the Mk3 tanks you see on the front section were supposed to attach to the clamp-o-tron-sr that's now blocked by the ore tanks so that the pull tug that is currently in the middle would have been at the front.

Yes I could just re-launch a new one/save file edit - but it's not what NASA would do...

More later, but this post was already getting long!

Edited June 21, 2019 by Chris Hopkins
Noting MkI vs MkII differences

[Chris Hopkins]

So the other thing I did was discover the tugs didn't have enough fuel to get the refuelling depot to minmus (comfortably). Fortunately I've been experimenting with some of the ideas I stolewas inspired by from kerbalX and I present to you:

Lucy in the sky with fuel(shown here ready to de-orbit):

And here it is about to land.

If anyone asks, it landed fine. Hardly anything fell off and anyway they were loose to begin with and it'll buff out and...

Edited June 21, 2019 by Chris Hopkins
Missing screenshots - saved for later post

[Goody1981]

Made a lovely little VTOL tilt engine

Pre take-off

 

Just after a vertical take-off at sunrise

 

Engines rotated, heading out over the water at mach 1

[Hotel26]

I guess everybody sooner or later goes this route:

  

Thinking about the logistics of providing OX as well as LF to remote stations to keep rover fuel cells operational...

This is an eXperimental version of Pacemaker[*] undergoing trials.  Twin Junos...  Can run without OX.

I'm running a Pacemaker crew around a circumnavigation of Kerbin at the moment and know from experience that it can do 50 m/s safely as long as one stays out of the mountains...

...runs quick check on the KSC Green: 110+ m/s (before Green turned blue)...

Running known routes (with known speed limits), I think this could be operated efficiently...?

(While I'm here, why the heck is it that rungs under the hatch on the rear of an exposed Mk2 cabin do not under any circumstances allow a kerbal to board?)

* credit to @Atkara for the base design of Pacemaker

Edited June 21, 2019 by Hotel26