What did you do in KSP1 today?

[XLjedi]

2 minutes ago, rettter3 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggy_Marley

Coulda been Bowie's Ziggy Stardust...   who knows?

[capi3101]

I was thinking Ziggy Stardust my own self...

 

(1.8.1) Had a hell of an end to my week last week - one of my kids wound up in the ER having needed his epi-pens while at school. He's fine; I'm annoyed at the teacher for a major brain fart but other than that no lasting harm done. Did kill my day off pretty effectively on Friday, and combined with the usual rigors of a weekend followed with a morning playing catch up, I don't have a great deal to report to y'all today. Going to be screenie-light too, I'm afraid...

So in my last post, I was kind of up in the air about what to do with my day - I had a large window of time to kill before J. G. Backus en route to LSV House Harkonnen over Tylo arrived for docking. The third test flight of the Auk XVIII 20-passenger spaceplane was a complete success, so I didn't have much else to attend to during the period. I had mentioned that the window was large enough to begin the long-delayed survey mission to Eve's north pole, and that's what I wound up doing with my time - the Echo 3 quadcopter parked near the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on Eve's surface took off and conducted the nearly 1,200 kilometer flight to the target zone, conducing seismic readings at the two target waypoints for contract. I noticed something while I was still in flight.

This thing's not supposed to have "nuclear fuel" as one of its resources. Was damn glad to have it, though - stuff gave a kick to the SAFER reactor output when I really needed it...

"Nuclear Fuel" is one of the Classic Stock resources utilized by Wild Blue mods such as Pathfinder and MOLE, both of which I used. I play my career save in CRP mode, which doesn't utilize any of the Classic Stock resources, so the Nuclear Fuel should not have been there. The fact that it was there indicated to me that I had missed a step during a recent update to the MOLE mod, so after finishing up the survey mission, I quit the game and did a full wipe and reinstall of Pathfinder and MOLE and reconfiguration to CRP mode, in the hopes that in doing so I'd regain functionality to my remote launchpads and shipyards (specifically the launchpad at the Aban Pearl outpost on Moho, where I've been trying without success to build an orbital shipyard for the better part of the week). Unfortunately, the reinstall did not do the trick, though I did ultimately come to the determination that it was only my craft that contained the Bigby Orbital Workshop from the MOLE mod that was causing trouble - all other craft I could still print up normally. While Pearl could not print a shipyard, she had no problems with printing up a G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin craft, completing the print after a 59 minute delay. After the craft was fueled, it launched and burned for an intercept and rendezvous with LSV House Corrino still in orbit of Moho. The craft arrived and docked safely without incident after a 64 minute flight. Shortly afterwards, Backus arrived at House Harkonnen, docking without incident. 

Not much else to report for the weekend proper. I completed a parts test as a replacement to the Eve survey mission, and had pilot Shepry Kerman at Aban Pearl plant a flag on the Mohoan surface for contract. I also attempted a roll-back of the MOLE mod to see if that would fix the issues with Aban Pearl and allow the outpost to begin printing the shipyard. Didn't work, I'm afraid. Only things to report so far for my day today are a transfer of Rocket Parts via mass driver from the South Base outpost near KSC to LSV House Atreides in Kerbin orbit and the successful return flight of Echo 3 to ALK. The first of these ensures that Atreides will be able to complete the re-print of the Bus Module it needs for its planned huge interplanetary mission, the second wraps up operations at Eve for the time being.

So the next thing on my horizon is warping. I can either get House Harkonnen to Duna for the final leg of its current tourist mission next or I can have House Corrino get home from Moho with the GLOC in an effort to continue system exploration missions, possibly unlocking Eeloo (i.e. the last stop in the system). Assuming Harkonnen goes to Duna, I've got one tourist heading towards the surface, and when that's happened she can head for Kerbin to close things out. Time permitting, I may try to do both but I wouldn't count on that happening today. I've still got the Tradidit Lestum Shipyards at Laythe recycling the print of a plane from a couple of weeks ago, Atreides printing the Bus Module and an MC alarm in my KAC calendar (i.e. i'm waiting for a lame contract offer to expire rather than refusing it outright), but that's it. The big tourist mission is riding on the Bus Module and it can't get underway until that's ready to go - which will be soon now. I've recently picked up a mission for a new satellite over Mün, so I can get that started, and I've got a new mission to add five seats to Kerbinport. I can probably take care of that by having one of the two spaceplanes scheduled to head to Atreides stop by Kerbinport and I believe that was part of the plan there anyway, so it dovetails. I've also now got a new mission to drill at Bop and put the contents in orbit over Jool, an ore-con I can deal with whenever I feel ready to do so. So not much going on of note. Hope to have more to report to y'all tomorrow. More screenies too...can't really post just one o' thems...

[Curveball Anders]

3 hours ago, XLjedi said:

But the actual nickname arose from my design designation of ZGB for "Zero-G Bot" and I took to calling them "Zig-B's" for awhile.   Ziggy just seemed more endearing for this one I s'pose.

Take off every ZIG?

 

[Guest]

"Waste not, want not" is progressing slowly but surely. My main obstacle right now is lack of Funds -- I need another 100k to upgrade my VAB, until then I have only 30 parts or less to play with. This severely limits my options.

I have a very nice reusable light lifter, dubbed the Bumblebee; it has 20 parts, is powered by twin Reliants, and is capable of lofting a light vehicle into LKO, then re-entering and gliding to a safe water landing. I also have a very nice light reusable Mun/Minmus vehicle -- it has about 2500 m/s of dV which is enough to get to Munar orbit and safely back (no heat shields so I do need to carry the extra 800 m/s or so not to burn up in the atmosphere). I've used the Bumblebee to carry that on several missions. I also sent a permanent Munar surface probe and a couple of relays, which let me quickly deal with "Science from the surface of the Mun" type contracts. 

Next up my plan is to send a similar probe on a similar mission to Minmus. Unfortunately the part count limitation means I won't be able to send a relay with it.  

[MaxxQ]

4 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Coulda been Bowie's Ziggy Stardust...   who knows?

 

3 hours ago, capi3101 said:

I was thinking Ziggy Stardust my own self...

That was my first thought as well.

[pmborg]

Today was trying new adventures on dbarmory:

1st constructed a Super Armored tower:

 

Then tried to destroy it...: (you know that movie... trying to escape from prison and runaway to another world and create a colony... )

~

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

I flew a Dirtblood to Duna for some scientific surveys. 

 

• Making a turn while flying. It took a while, but I managed to get it pointed towards the lowlands up north.

 

• Good thing I had some oxidizer left for the RCS thruster under the nose, otherwise I probably would have died on impact.

 

We're now refueling the plane before flying for the north pole.

[manek22]

On 2/9/2020 at 12:29 AM, SlinkyMcman said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Totally dig the duel use, air brake and landing leg design. They tuck away nicely too. 

[Cavscout74]

I continued messing with a JNSQ science save.  I (barely) made a Mk 2 pod capable of Mun orbit & (hopefully) return.  My first attempt ran just barely short of dV, then ended up going too deep on reentry & blowing up.  Second attempt is on the way to Mun.  Originally, I was just planning an orbit & return but after reverting the first mission, I expanded the mission to include a separate lander.   Somehow, every single launch happened at night

Departing Kerbin - the Girrok MPV takes the original Dawngrazer MPV craft with a stretched fuel tank and mates it to a 2.5m launcher to get enough dV for a Mun mission

Mun arrival

Looking back to home

First attempt did NOT end as intended

Second attempt departing for the Mun - an improved launcher got me to orbit with a nearly 300 m/s remaining in the second stage

I then built a lander to head to the Mun separately.  This is the first time I've actually used the MH lander, it should be interesting.   The launcher ended up being MUCH larger than expected.  First attempt was a 2.5m hydrolox core with a pair of 2.5m hydrolox boosters, then a hydrolox second stage followed by a Poodle-powered orbital stage.  That wasn't enough, so the 2 radial boosters turned into 4 with asparagus staging.

First launch attempt with just 2 radial boosters

Second stage ignition (plus a trio of Sepratrons for ullage and to boost thrust above 1g till some fuel burns off) - this was from the second attempt

In orbit, waiting for Mun transfer

Both the manned capsule & the lander are currently heading for Mun, but I ran out of time.  The lander still has over 1500 m/s remaining in the transfer stage, so it will handle the rendezvous maneuvers - the MPV is still a little tight on fuel. 

[Angelo Kerman]

I started investigating an issue with MOLE and created a promo image for a new part:

As always, @Nertea!s artwork continues to amaze and inspire me to improve my own skill. This engine is a result of that effort,

Edited February 25, 2020 by Angel-125

[DNKKING]

A big faster plane

His name is LUA-001

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Guest]

^
I love that.

[capi3101]

(1.8.1) It's been a good 24 hours, y'all.

So as I mentioned in my last post, I was in a position where both LSV House Harkonnen over Tylo and LSV House Corrino over Moho were ready to head to their next destinations - Duna and Kerbin, respectively - and I anticipated spending a fair chunk of my day at warp. First up was House Harkonnen. Before heading out for Duna, one of the tourists aboard wanted to do a Laythe flyby.

House Harkonnen over Tylo aimed directly at Laythe. Part of the fun of jumping around the inner Joolian system...

Harkonnen warped over to Laythe, arriving seconds later before departing to head over Jool to gain speed for the warp to Duna.

It's hard to tell in this screenshot, but this is called "cutting it close". The ship's on a direct course for Jool and the failsafe altitude for the Alcubierre Drive for Jool is 3000k. A few more seconds without a course change and the drive would no longer engage...

Overshot on the speed ramp-up as it turned out but not too badly - Harkonnen departed Jool and warped to Duna, arriving at 3,223 m/s. Thirteen warp-back maneuvers later, the ship settled into a 411.2 by 360.9 kilometer, 2.87° inclined orbit. J. G. Backus docked to Harkonnen departed upon orbital entry and made her way to space station Dunaport, arriving and docking safely after a flight of just over two hours. 

While Backus was en route to Dunaport, the Tradidit Lestum Yards over Laythe finally completed their disassembly of the Auk XVII ordered up weeks ago that would've come out of the bay sideways; this was the plane that was ultimately ordered up successfully at the C. P. Baker outpost on the surface with its own headaches (which involved a full replacement of the nosecone assembly). Not really much to say about this one other than it wraps up a sidenote and all activities at Laythe, at least until LSV House Atreides arrives with the colonists bound for Baker. 

House Corrino also had a window for warping while Backus was en route to Dunaport. The ship broke orbit from Moho and warped to Kerbin, arriving at 6,111 m/s. Eight warpbacks were required to put her into a 711.9 by 587.8 kilometer, 1.23° inclined orbit over the planet. Upon orbital entry,  the G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin craft she'd hauled to Kerbin from Moho departed and burned down to a 104.1 by 81.1 equatorial orbit in preparation for atmospheric entry. 

At that point, Backus arrived at Dunaport and docked without incident. Backus took on fuel from the station's stores while tourist Gledorf Kerman boarded the station's Spamcan 7c 4-passenger lander. The lander departed the station and conducted an immediate burn for deorbit and landing; the deorbit burn wrapped up my day yesterday, with the final landing burn happening first thing this morning; the craft touched down safely in one of Duna's Craters.

Gledorf looks happy to be fulfilling a lifelong dream of staring out onto a Dunan landscape. Me, I'm just happy for a daytime screenie...

Once the Spamcan was safely on the ground, it was time to deorbit the G-LOC. The craft deorbited safely and eventually touched down 1.9 kilometers south-southwest of the Administration Building at KSC.

Crappy screenshot but it's one of the rare ones where both KSC and the South Base outpost are visible - South Base is that little lit-up cluster of buildings bottom left.

The G-LOC's successful recovery brought the current exploration contract to a close. It was time at that point to wrap things up and get started with my paying working day, but I did take a moment before mashing 'quit' to go into Mission Control to take on the next exploration contract.

...aw yeah, baby. We're wrapping it all up now.

Plans are underway now to send House Corrino to Eeloo, my final destination in the Kerbol system.

So for today my first priority will be to get the Spamcan back up to Dunaport. That done and everything refueled, House Harkonnen will be making her way back to Kerbin; her passengers have all finished up their itineraries this point and it's time to get them home. House Corrino has some building to do - she'll need a G-LOC to take with her to Eeloo. If that wraps up, she can head straight there and back; ordinarily I'd stick around long enough to drop off communications satellites but the contract is not going to allow that just yet, so it should be a straight-forward there-and-back. That might happen today. House Atreides is close to being done with the Bus Module she's been printing up over the last few days, so her big interplanetary mission is about ready to kick off. I'll be sending up nearly forty kerbals to various destinations throughout the system, including twenty colonists for C. P. Baker on Laythe, nine for Sleipnir A on Dres and three for Petrobas 36 on Pol. Bop and Vall are also on tap for the six general tourists tagging along for the journey. I'll need some of my ferry ships for passenger delivery from Atreides to orbital space stations and I've got a contract to "expand" space station Kerbinport with five extra seats, so one of the spaceplanes scheduled to deliver passengers from Kerbin to Atreides will be making a stop at Kerbinport along the way. I have a satellite I need to begin printing up over Mun and some drilling to do at Bop, but other than that I don't have anything else going on contract-wise. Got an MC alarm up (I'm not doing that damn goo study at Ike because I know the game won't credit me when it's finished); don't know what the replacement contract will be and I certainly hope that I don't have to change my plans when the time comes. I've also got some extra personnel (of the less intelligent variety) at the space center that I plan to deliver to South Base when I get a free minute.

Looks like I'll get to head to Eeloo before upgrading to 1.9, y'all. Looking forward to it.

[Kerbolitto]

Finale version is in orbit

 

 

[Retro Starship]

An easy career contract to bring a Nerv Atomic engine for a suborbital trajectory around Minmus. No need to land it but I brought the lander as well being that Doctor's Basilia engine works so well for these missions and the lander is apart of it. Not much more in cost due to the amount of fuel needed to get here as well. Its shape was superb for this mission too. Also had to bring, not one, but two large Decouplers as well. The TD-37's. Thats why I talked about shape of the Basilia starship. Its really good for low heavy weight objects. 

It's so funny to get the same task in one career assignment. Did them both and the Nerv engine too, so Job done!

(1.8.1, Making History, Breaking Ground, Kerbalism and many mods)

[NHunter]

Today, I Rock'ed - erm... landed on Rock.

 

[purpleivan]

More progress towards the goal of fully upgrading the KSC, with nothing but milestones to pay for it.

The mighty Reuso 3 heads to orbit where glory awaits.

The mighty Reuso 2 after being rescued (someone forgot to include a probe core in the design) with the addition of a module launched by the little tiddler Reuso 1.

Eve awaits... and milestones... and cash... LOVELY CASH.

Someone stole the ocean.

Jeb's ship fell asleep on the job.

Ship and Jeb made it home safely, with a whole load of tasty science morsels, so now he (and not forgetting Val, Bob and Bill... this is a team after all) are now considering where to go to next.

[Cavscout74]

Continued my adventures in a JNSQ science save. 

While Jeb & Bill were heading for Mun, Val took up a new jet for a quick hop to the Island Airfield.

A few days later, Jeb & Bill arrived in Mun orbit

Jeb playing around on EVA on the dark side of the Mun

Several hours later the ML2 lander arrived & entered a 600 km orbit

Rendezvous & docking went smoothly.  The crew quickly transferred to the lander.  About half the lander transfer stage fuel was transferred to the MPV before undocking.

Even after transferring fuel, the transfer stage was still able to do most of the braking, leaving just the last hundred m/s to the actual lander.  Apparently I could've transferred more fuel to the MPV

Much to my surprise, the untested ML2 lander worked pretty well and delivered Jeb & Bill to a soft landing in the Mun lowlands

Flag planting on the surface after gathering science

Upper stage lifting off, leaving a substantial amount of wasted fuel on the surface - and one science experiment totally forgotten about

Rather than docking again, the crew EVA'd over to the MPV after rendezvous.  Bill at least remembered to grab the science on his way out the hatch.  This was the only part of the lander that wasn't extremely over-engineered, with less than 80 m/s dV remaining after rendezvous. 

Leaving the Mun

First of multiple aerobraking passes.  I actually ran out of time and will have to continue tomorrow.   I'm having to re-learn how to return from Mun with the extra 2000 m/s compared to stock and after my first failure, I went overly cautious this time.  Five passes through the atmosphere and my Ap is still over 2000 km.

 

I will say one thing - getting to & from the Mun is no longer a routine day trip like in stock scale.   JNSQ is certainly making things more interesting!!

Edited February 26, 2020 by Cavscout74

[Teek]

First time poster on this thread, normally I consider my KSP activities to be a bit too plain and modest to really be worth sharing, but today was a particularly special... Kerbally event.

Routine pair of missions came in from mission control: Rescue one Kerbal in LKO, another in orbit above the Mun.  I use a standard Mk 1-3 vehicle with one pilot (Mission Commander and veteran rescue pilot Mowell) and two empty seats, and enough delta v to make the journey rather comfortably... normally.  I realize after I've picked up Kerbal #1 (Irfry) and completed my burn to transfer to the Mun that I will be pulling into a Counter Clockwise orbit, and the Kerbal I need to rescue is clockwise.  No problem, I've got fuel to burn and can reverse that orbit, even with enough Normal acceleration line things up, nice and easy transfer of Kerbal #2 (Arbus) over a few hundred meters to my ship.  This has used up quite a bit of fuel, but I still have just enough to spare to get into an aerobraking orbit, albeit a bit of a steep one.  It is then that I realize my crucial error... for the first time in my 6+ years of KSP, I've launched a mission (at least, a mission this long) without... parachutes.  Can't stabilize the orbit, I just utilized the last of my fuel, and it's steep enough that the module will only need one pass to bleed off all of its remaining velocity and complete reentry: so no rescue mission.  As I'm facing the shame of having to abort the mission or admit defeat and let them die a fiery death, I have a revelation: we'll pull a Vostok and have the astronauts bail out and deploy chutes manually.  It's going to be tight though: all three need to clear the capsule and deploy, and before the distance between capsule and astronaut is so great as to complicate transfering control.  Irfry Kerman steps up first, jumps and... she immediately blacks out.  Oh, yeah, btw, we were going about 900 m/s, so 2-3 times the speed of sound.  Fair enough, though we'll need to redouble the Kerbals' high gravity training after the mission to improve their tolerance.

So Irfry is out, in free fall, and out like a light.; regardless, we press on.  Arbus jumps out next: this time, the capsule has slowed down a bit more, so she retains consciousness.  Finally, Commander Arbus jumps out, not willing to leave the vehicle until the rest of the crew was confirmed safe (or at least, not in the death trap anymore.)  She remains conscious and is able to deploy her chute. I was able to switch back to Arbus and activate her chute, and finally Irfry decided to wake up and pull hers as well.  What was originally shaping up to be a major disaster ended up becoming a fine demonstration of coordinated skydiving.  All three Kerbals safely splashed down, and close enough that they could regroup and celebrate their survival while waiting for pickup.  I'd done a couple of parachute landings, mostly just as an experiment and recreation of the first Vostok flight.  Never thought I would need to actually use that to complete a mission, let alone land 3 at a time, but it ended up being quite fun!  The absent minded engineer who left off the parachutes has now been relegated to hosing down the launch pad, and Mowell, Arbus, and Irfry are enjoying their hero status back at base!

 

[Angelo Kerman]

I continued my investigation of MOLE, and got the emissive textures working on my KR-2200L:

Engine Off:

Full thrust:

Metal is heating up:

[BadOaks]

22 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I started investigating an issue with MOLE and created a promo image for a new part:

As always, @Nertea!s artwork continues to amaze and inspire me to improve my own skill. This engine is a result of that effort,

This is awesome! Did you use anything for a reference? I ask because it reminded me immediately of ARCA's SSTO rocket, which also uses a linear aerospike.

[Angelo Kerman]

8 minutes ago, BadOaks said:

This is awesome! Did you use anything for a reference? I ask because it reminded me immediately of ARCA's SSTO rocket, which also uses a linear aerospike.

Yes, I used the XRS-2200 linear aerospike. It was developed in the 90s for the X-33 project but shelved when the X-33 was cancelled.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_XRS-2200

[Elro2k]

Just got done building and launching a Soyuz inspired rocket I'm calling the "RK-7 Molotov". This is now my go to launch vehicle for crews of up to 3, or a light payload to LKO. Super fun to launch!

[JadeOfMaar]

I cloned the Whiplash engine and made a proper ramjet out of it. Inoperable under Mach 2.7 but enables cruising speeds between Mach 5 and 6 and is super efficient at top speeds.

Triumphantly, I landed at Darude while flying westward from the launchsite. Fortunately (or not) there was no sandstorm.

 

[Dafni]

43 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I cloned the Whiplash engine and made a proper ramjet out of it. Inoperable under Mach 2.7 but enables cruising speeds between Mach 5 and 6 and is super efficient at top speeds.

That sounds super intriguing! Wish they were like that in stock, or that we had another stock jet like this even. Nice thinking there!

 

11 hours ago, NHunter said:

Today, I Rock'ed - erm... landed on Rock.

Hmm, what Rock would that be if I may ask. It looks nice from your pics!

 

19 hours ago, DNKKING said:

A big faster plane

His name is LUA-001

I like him. Nice craft. I bet it hauls!