What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Fraktal]

Today I was doing some booster engineering when I realized why I can't get enough takeoff thrust out of 1.875m crafts prior to engineering.

Because it never occurred to me that Bobcats are just the right shape to cluster onto a single 1.875m engine plate two at a time without clipping.

Once I realized that, I threw together a rocket with a five-stack first stage, looked at KER's readouts and promptly dropped my jaw at the 3.77 TWR at just over 100 tons. I take my until-now thoughts about this being a worthless piece of work, this is a REALLY kickass engine when clustered! Just one double-engine stack is roughly halfway between a Skipper and a Vector in terms of performance. It's quite the glutton, though; my five-stack first stage on this 100-ton rocket runs out of juice in less than 40 seconds.

 

Oh, and while I was at it I also added the Pollux SRB to the wiki's Making History part list, since nobody ever added it.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Fraktal

[noname_hero]

This is Valentina. She's one of the best, and this is a publicity photo, so she's smiling.

But yesterday? Yesterday she was bloody furious.

Her Eve Lander Module was less than a minute past apogee and the perigee was low enough for a landing. But the rear heat shield wouldn't inflate, and a quick inspection made her disbelieve her own eyes for a second. There was a /docking port welded to her heat shield/. Apparently, some idiotic tech used an old docking port as a liner to protect the one on the transfer stage from damage, and another idiot welded it in place.

So Val was on the clock and she knew she couldn't stick this landing. And she's never trained for /this/ eventuality and the module's staging wasn't prepared for Emergency Orbital Disassembly. So she braked a bit more, to make sure no debris would make it back onto a stable orbit, ditched most of the lander and cleared the debris field alive. Unfortunately, everything happened in haste, so something, most likely the front heat shield assembly, hit and destroyed the docking port on top of her lander can.

Now she had a transfer stage with no life support on it and the last ascent stage that lacked a docking port. Sure, her module might have enough dV to make it back to Kerbin, given she did little more than raise her perigee a bit, but the module had no docking port and no parachute. Why? The new reusable transfer stage, like the older model it replaced as having a better TWR, has enough dV to allow the mission to dock with the KSS back at Kerbin. There was no reason to make the ascent module heavier by adding a heat shield or a parachute. What to do?

Enter Bill and his contingency planning. There was /another/ ship orbitting Eve, the old tourist bus designed to ferry tourists to Duna and back, pre-positioned to Eve in case something went wrong. So Val took her lander can next to it, aimed her lander onto a descending course, let the engine hiss, which is like letting it roar but at around 5% of max thrust, and bailed out. It took just a few puffs from her EVA pack to make it to the old bus and grab a hold. This will make the wait for a transfer window back to Kerbin way more comfortable.

But it sure took some time for her to calm down enough for this photo op

[Grogs]

Nothing too exciting today. Jeb and Bill made about 5 more trips down to Minimus mining ore. Minimus Station is now full of fuel, and there are about 8,000 units of ore for making more fuel when needed.

I did have a weird bug after the next-to-last ore run.

• When the miner returned from the surface, the radiator panels at the station were showing overheating. When I right-clicked, they were showing 100% efficiency as opposed to the 12% I was getting from the convert-o-tron 250.
• After I docked the miner and deployed it's panels, they did the same thing - showed overheating despite the drills being off.
• When I undocked the miner, it and the station started shaking despite RCS and engines being off.
• When I tried to time warp, I was told I couldn't because the ship was under acceleration.
• I restored the most recent quicksave and everything went back to normal.

 

 

The only other eventful thing was the crew shuttle departing for the Mun. I've got a contract to plant a flag there, and some of the newer kerbonauts could use the experience. I also have a contract to expand my Munar Station and having the crew shuttle attached will help meet the crew and fuel requirements.

[Hotel26]

[from  Instalment 1]

So, in instalment 2 of my little story, Kerbals Go Star Crazy On Ike: I am happy to report that Seanlas Kerman landed on the surface of Duna (first this 'world' ('career'))

  

  

without mishap.  He landed on the rim of a small crater, finding 13% ore, and subsequently "flew" the Ladybug toward the center of the crater, scouting for a flat spot.

About half fuel was consumed reaching the surface.  (Ladybug has about 3.8 km/s dV.)  The Ladybug proved itself quite capable on Duna as a survey rover (I don't do wheels any more), although the extra drain on fuel caused by atmospheric drag was noticeable.  A very convenient conveyance...

Stay tuned for instalment 3, as Hummingbird next makes an attempt to land!

[click and arrow for slideshow]

[Instalment 3]

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by Hotel26

[noname_hero]

11 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

So, in instalment 2 of my little story, Kerbals Go Star Crazy On Ike: I am happy to report that Seanlas Kerman landed on the surface of Duna (first this 'world' ('career'))

Grandmother, what big jetpack you have

This really takes the concept of jetpack to another level...

[FezCool]

Today I sent two probes on trajectories to Duna and Eve. Then I sent Jebediah to the Minmus Base in a mining ship I made a while ago.

Landing

After landing Jeb decided the walk was too far and got back in the ship to make a short 60m hop over to the outpost.

After Jeb's arrival Bill went out to great them and the two talked about recent highlights in Spaseball. Jeb entered the base while Bill got in the mining ship to start up the refining process.

The refinery works quite well so it was probably a good investment.

[Pipcard]

Y87, D25 - The Blue Swift nuclear turbojet aircraft flying above Laythe

[CalmLlama]

I finished this ship tonight, and flew it to Eeloo.  It worked very well.  I've been working on it for a few weeks, and it's really great to finally see it finished and flying.  I will publish it on KerbalX in a few days.  

[Bej Kerman]

On 8/2/2020 at 12:07 PM, problemecium said:

Today I finally got back to KSP after several days of fighting to restore my computer to health (blech) and surprisingly didn't summon the Kraken with this abomination I have constructed:

What happened and how'd you fix your PC?

[problemecium]

Oh, it's a long story. Some tiny error happened, some file corrupted or configuration misconfigured, but unfortunately in one of the boot directories, so my OS failed to boot. Startup Repair just gave up when I tried to run it, System File Checker refused to run, System Restore claimed that no restore points existed whatsoever, DISM refused to recognize the path as a place it was possible to put an OS image, and my Windows To Go USB drive loaded perfectly except for some reason is unable to render any text and is therefore useless despite System File Checker claiming that its configuration was flawless. I exhausted every option short of paying Micro Center $69 to tell me I had to reinstall Windows and, after almost two days of failures, resorted to using 7-zip (an incredible piece of software for which I am immeasurably grateful, notably because it somehow is able to run inside a recovery environment) to copy my user directory, downloaded fonts, etc. to a backup drive and then factory reset my computer, resulting in me time-travelling back to Windows 7 in 2013. Over the last few days I've gone about re-updating to Windows 10, redoing all my customizations, trying to install Linux on a USB drive for the next time this happens and instead accidentally erasing the file partition table on my SDXC card and causing my Steam library and a bunch of other files to get scrambled (damn you Rufus!), restoring what I could from said SDXC card, actually installing Linux on the USB drive, finding out that Linux is way nicer than it was years ago when I was first introduced to it, and finally reinstalling KSP along with various other programs.

In the interest of being on topic, today so far in KSP I have discovered an embarrassing fatal flaw in my ongoing Jool mission and am scrambling to find an efficient way to fix it.
UPDATE: And naturally, after everything seemingly going swimmingly yesterday, today every single thing I do ends up being a failure. I botched undocking the right part on the mothership three times, then it took like ten tries to come up with a system for recovering it that didn't end up with the parachutes magically disappearing and whining about "aero forces and heat", the launch configuration for the recovery system kept connecting wrong invisibly in the VAB so it got all wobbly on launch, and then when I finally got it seemingly going right and had it on the way to rendezvous, I realized I had somehow not brought any MonoPropellant >.<

Edited August 5, 2020 by problemecium
aaaaaaaa

[Hotel26]

13 hours ago, noname_hero said:

This really takes the concept of jetpack to another level...

SMOKING STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

(Thank you for your kind words!)

[Grogs]

I had a lot of activity focused on the Mun yesterday. First, I launched a cupola up from Kerbin bound for Mun Station as part of the base expansion contract. It rendezvoused with the half-full fuel tanker I had in LKO at Kerbin Station and the two proceeded towards the Mun.

 

Then I realized that even with the fuel tanker and the crew shuttle coming down from Minimus I still wouldn't have the 7500 LF required to complete the contract. I really regret taking this contract, but I'm almost there now so I might as well finish. I launched a new tanker and sent that one off to Mun station as well. I made sure to put a new probe core on it because I get tired of manually holding maneuver node headings with the older ones.

 

 

Everything arrived at the Mun and got docked together. Once the crew shuttle docks and adds its 19-kerbal capacity the base upgrade contract will be complete.

 

 

Back on Minimus I had a probe arrive to fulfill a satellite contract.

 

 

I detached a refueler from Minimus Station and sent it towards Kerbin where it will replace the one I just sent up to Munar Station.

 

 

Ludorf and Beazor took the lander down to a few different biomes gathering science. They transmitted all the reports so I could get immediate science back on Kerbin and then collected a second copy so the remainder can be hand carried by the next crew heading home.

 

 

Thanks to the new science data coming in from Minimus, I was able to unlock RTGs. I sent out a very important probe with 4 RTG power sources for the surface experiment stations on the Mun and Minimus. Once these are installed by a competent engineer, the stations will be able to collect data at night doubling the science output.

[Okhin]

There's a contract out there to map 11 asteroids endangering Kerbin, so I put up a small probe to go between Kerbin and Eve and catch those rocks.

A tall rocket, it's been a while I've done something simple like this.

And we're now live. More or less, the antennas is a bit small so I'm barely in range of anything else, but it should do it.

Next were a contract to expand the Gateway Plexe, and expanding it from 70 to 75 Kerbals space. Which I found ridiculous, so I've designed an asteroid holder for the station with MK2 cabins, designed in a hand. More or less. To hold the Kubpola.

This is a perfectly aerodynamic thing. 6 LRB to help with the launch. 2 3.75m stage, with 3 skippers each and, in the fairing, monprop, core drone, battery and a retrograde Nerv. And a Valentina somewhere to drive some parts of the gateway, which lacks drone core. Lots of struts too, to keep things from wobbling too much.

LRBs separation is nominal.

First stage separation is A-OK.

A little bit of maneuvering during the burn toward the Gateway Plexe to rotate the hand and have the Nerv in line with the prograde vector.

There's a 0.009 TWR on this thing. I should have pack two or three more engines, it took forever to reach the border of Kerbin SOI. As well as a lot of correcting burn during the travel there.

0.009 TWR. I should have checked.

The kubpola has been ejected from the Plexe, and the rings have been halted. The hand is en route to dock to the Kubpola.

Contact. And nominal docking. Now we need to get rid of the Nerv and its tanks, and give Valentina control of the remaining maneuver.

And finally, everything is now assembled in position. Rings rotating perfectly fine. I can now drop asteroids on top of the station and attach them there.

The contract completed, but I have no idea of how many kerbals can live there. Ok, no. It's 70 + 16 * 4, so 134 kerbals can fit in the space bar.

[Hotel26]

[from Instalment 2]

More happy news in this, the third instalment of my little story, Kerbals Go Star Crazy On Ike, in which the guys, marooned on Ike for what seemed like years, but was in actuality only a couple of revolutions around good old Kerbol, decided to improvise and toodle off to Duna for grins, even though their equipment wasn't suited, not tested, and nothing planned.

This time, the spotlight was on Ribdard Kerman to bring DH1 Hummingbird down to the surface of Duna and land nearby in the small crater.

  

  

  

[click & arrow for slideshow]

Seanlas: "Now how does this Bluetooth pairing thing work again...?"

Ribdard: "Ah, there you are, 5x5...  Good to see you, old bean!  Say, I'm a wee low on EVA propellant having jetted over from the Hummingbird.  Be a good chap and go pick it up for me, would you?"

 

instalment 4

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Hotel26

[SpaceCarmelo]

So proud to announce you that after 4 years of playing ksp i actually docked and randevouz manually for the first time without using mechjeb. And i did it in IVA!!

"How?" you may ask. 

I just watched a 10 minutes "how to randevouz and dock for dummies" on youtube. 

The liftoff sequence was automated by KOS, thanks to the ACFEL flight recording system i wrote in Kerboscript. Check out my post about it in Addons Discussion. 

The Almaz Station had a trouble with his antennas so i sent jeb there with a Soyuz clone to fix it up.

Now that i learn how to dock i'm gonna try a Shuttle-MIR program!

Bye!!

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by SpaceCarmelo

[Misguided Kerbal]

Today, (Well, actually, last night), I launched this monstrosity: the Atlas-Heavy. Basically, a 3.75m core with 7 walrus engines from NFLV, plus 8 BACC SRBs. It's sorta overkill for the payload: A minmus lander + a transfer stage.

[RizzoTheRat]

Bob broke Minmus

 

[Guest]

The final Preflight test is a success!

The Eve Crew lander must be able to ditch the Heat Shield successfully with no damage to the lander.

Out of all things I think Eve Landing will be the one I do the most. I will have to do that part again and again to get the precise landing spot.

 

To give an idea of so far:

I got an eve lander to get into orbit

I have developed spacecraft designed to be optimized for the missionn

And I got the Eve mission planned out so far

Now to build:

The Launcher!

Edited August 5, 2020 by Guest

[Guest]

Oh YEAH

The moment has arrived:

Eve Mission is a go! I won't start the mission tomorrow because I am VERY VERY busy with RL stuff. But afterwords I will begin my hours of flight time

 

Friday, I will begin the HECK OF QUICKSAVES!

[Grogs]

I put together an asteroid mover for a couple of contracts I have. It has four sets of ISRU equipment, which is probably extreme overkill, but having a drill on each corner means that even if the surface is very irregular at least one should be able to make contact. I also put in 8 Gigantor solar panels, 4 fuel cell arrays, and 20,000 units of EC storage for continuous power.

 

I speced it out to move a class C asteroid, which should be close to the 144-ton mass of an S4-256 fuel tank. Fully loaded with fuel, it would have about 700 m/s dV and a TWR of 0.43 pushing that mass of an asteroid. It should be able to move larger rocks around if they don't need a lot of dV all at once, but right now the hardest mission is to move a Class C asteroid into orbit around Minimus.

 

I designed a launcher for the ship and tested it. It took several redesigns to keep the nose from falling over during the gravity turn, but the tail fins on the side boosters finally fixed it. By the time they dropped off the gimbal on the Mammoth engine was enough to keep it on course.

 

 

After getting it to orbit, I realized that the asteroid I'm after is on a retrograde heading. I decided at that point to revert and go back to the drawing board. I'll either have to redesign the launcher to allow the extra dV to launch a fully-fueled craft into a retorgrade orbit, or else arrange for a refueling of the asteroid grabber before it heads out to meet the target.

[Hotel26]

Sea trials: Nautilus

[This is a photo without its 4 engines, lost in an incautious 'porpoise' maneuver.]

It's planned to have a set of 'dive' chutes (for the bottom) and a set of 'surface' chutes -- for the surface.

In addition, 2 or 4 ballast tanks, 2 trim tanks and a bladder tank.  Still working on the numbers.

The periscope extends and swivels and has a built-in search-light.  (Wait a minute!  It is a search-light.  )

It operates upon a key top-secret invention known as the Tardis Effect...  that's all I can tell you about that.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Hotel26

[aspacecephalopod]

Put an ocean base and boat on the semi-habitable world of Kerbmun (Whirligig World)

[KerbalKiller2000]

I made a huge (but useless) basketball court and discovered a comet visible from Kerbin. I tried throwing Whack-a-Kerbal balls through the hoops, but it just crumbled into pieces.

[Guest]

In orbit of Kerbin. Trying to find the cheapest way to Eve. Might have to do an aerocapture...

[Pipcard]

Y88, D322 - Dawn-4a deployed at Eve

Y88, D329 - Dawn-4a deployed at Gilly