Jump to content

What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

Recommended Posts

Finished my little weekend project today: "Try to build a helicopter cockpit that looks ok." Was not meant to be a Huey, but turned out to be one. (UH-1k)

K7ejc0Z.png

After 2 evenings of building (don´t put flags directly on hinges. I´ve never seen the Kraken work so fast. Lost quite a bit of progress there.) today was flying and tweaking time. To my surprise this thing turned out to be pleasantly stable and precise to fly. At least 2 hours of flight time on the clock and I haven´t gotten cramps in my left hand. 

hRHcxMr.png

And you know what? There´s still an hour before bedtime and I think I want to fly it a bit more. I´m really liking this one. :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Built a lower profile Vacc Lander (here docked to a Stock Vacc World Fuel/Crew transfer depot, and free flying). Gathered over 2100 Science from 2 seperate Surface Hop transits using only a Science Jr., Thermometer, Barometer, Mystery Goo. Rendevous for refueling and Crew between each three surface hop flights. Missing only Poles and slopes.

Time to insert one into orbit around the Mun for the Protracted Mun Science Raid. Planning on 2 Biome hops per each Mun surface transit.Z4pf0Hv.jpgZ4pf0Hv.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The past couple of days I've been continuing to work on my Caveman Challenge career...and the going is SLOW.  I'm trying to get enough science points to get more efficient propulsion systems before I start docking to that ugly space station, so I've been taking on contracts that grant science points for completing them.  Unfortunately, I can only have 2 contracts at once, and the gain is pretty darned small (2 here, 4 there).  But, I've earned enough science points to put me at 49.5 points, which is just over halfway to unlocking the next node in the tech tree.  So when I get to 90, I'll have unlocked better propulsion systems.  Yay!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Continuing an RP-1 career, I made a rocket plane to do a bunch of contracts. Flight 1 went OK, but I had to use the emergency parachute and ditch in the sea because I vastly overestimated its flight distance and airdropped it too far out to sea. Once it got fished out and returned to the SPH I upgraded the engine and made some minor adjustments to the fuel tanks to give it much more fuel than before, then flew it again even faster than before and so high that a big warning flashed up saying something like ‘go down or your pilot will run out of oxygen and die’; the pilot was fine and a fully successful runway landing followed.

Flight 3, the airdrop worked fine but the engine said no ignitions remaining even though it has 4 ignitions? Turns out that refuelling the plane isn’t enough, I also have to pull off the old engine with the depleted ignitions and put on a brand new (and identical) one in its place to make it work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Upgrading base, awaiting sunrise to load battery for contract:

E6B301679B4D8E5C0B4CEF80C6FF8837E37F8E13

I took a schortut with rover. It looks good on the map. But reality looks diferent:

46798E3F87D589AD8BBAF97BD1235CE1723E6C40

But Cardan Kerman is a brave scientist and follow orders:

EA41ABDA6CB24A4048F2D5AFDF40F7656B9FCB86

Setting new roads on nearby Mun using all the wheels. Reaction wheels.

0239E8F611857E589177ED23A45D1D15D2D6119A

And he passed.  As he passed all the way from the Polar Crater. Southwest crater is near, and then the south pole - Bob did the north.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first sample return from Nemesis (After Kerbin).

This is a two stage lander - the 4 gold fuel tanks are the descent stage and 2 silver tanks are the ascent stage. Each stage has 4 Spider engines and all 8 engines run during the descent. There is a battery, probe core, reaction wheel and scientific payload inside the lower stage, which is designed to stay on the moon to continue the gravioli and seismic research. 

0B9EA63925580981CE1B332C30ABD6680C167AA3

One of the ascent stage engines exploded during descent and clumsy Jebediah broke a solar panel on EVA. 

13CC3F9AED756F63FE0AA95B1FECD38C99FD08C5

As the landing spot is surrounded by higher peaks, a substantial amount of vertical velocity was needed to get to orbit. With a missing engine the TWR of the ascent stage dropped to meager 1.2 and the ~820 m/s of delta-v wasn't sufficient to get back to Solitude. 

Fortunately, the descent stage had 150 m/s left. I spent 100 of these to get both modules to a decent suborbital trajectory, decoupled and used the remaining fuel to land the descent stage with 8 m/s left (and another engine malfunction). It took a bit of vessel switching to keep both from crashing. 

9866BF71E2B0667B8F27BF629ECAC217C0BD780E

Because of the vessel switching, two of the ascent stage engines malfunctioned and Jebediah needed to promptly duct tape them back together mid-flight.

D0E3475C66FD37D7C4A535C6213458117262283E

I doubt his EVA report is publishable.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tooling around with an Inner Planets themed career. I did a crew rotation for my spaceship currently orbiting Gilly, sent a surveyor probe to Moho, and am testing a miner/refinery combination also intended to head there. It works great on the Mun. Might deck the final version up with some more scientific instruments. It will also serve as the booster to get Bill and possibly an extra pilot there. There's an Eve/Moho transfer window in three weeks, so my Gilly crew will head there next -- according to my estimates they have the legs for it, but will need the miner/refinery there to refuel. 

This one is slow, slow as I don't have more than a couple of hours a week to put into this.

h8PQwfq.png

The miner has a quite a bit of robotics in it. The Nervs all pivot for cruise and landing, and the drill is mounted on a couple of servos hidden in the structural tube; it sits on the back of the craft in flight and pivots down and around to the side to get to work. Yes it clips, no I don't think it's cheating in this context.

bLkJrYt.png

Edited by Guest
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The below picture is nothing special compared to what people usually post in this forum - it is unusual for me....

First of all let me link to a chart of rocket sizes:

660px-Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicles.p

 

 

Usually, I launch large spacecraft in several parts to orbit and then dock the relevant parts to each other there. I prefer small to medium sized rockets. But this time, I went lazy and for the heck of it made this monster - 158 meters tall (assembled as three different designs in VAB one time or another and now merged together). It was too tall for for VAB with top clipping the roof and bottom stage clipping the floor, but seems to be ok once on the launch pod.

hhRxUih.png

....

Despite it looking as I went overboard with boosters and engines, its TWR is crappy at 1.37

bc7omRm.png

4RpfOkf.png

Edited by IncompetentSpacer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, IncompetentSpacer said:

Despite it looking as I went overboard with boosters and engines, its TWR is crappy at 1.37

Have I been playing KSP wrong after all this time? 1.37 is a little much TWR for me! My definition of a crappy TWR is 1.05, and most of my rockets are in the 1.10-1.20 range.

To be fair, I am on JNSQ, and I spend multiple days designing and testing each launch vehicle before I save it as a subassembly and use it dozens of times without modifications.

Edited by Clamp-o-Tron
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Have I been playing KSP wrong after all this time? 1.37 is a little much TWR for me! My definition of a crappy TWR is 1.05, and most of my rockets are in the 1.10-1.20 range.

There is no right and wrong in KSP -the only thing that matters is - does the rocket transport the payload where I want to? If yes - It is a great design imho. Wast majority of users on this forums will disagree but that is neither here or there.

I don't aim for general TWR value but I want as much as possible TWR at atmo stages below 20 000 for heavy rockets but generally I am more concerned with DV budget.

In  career mode I aimed for cheapest possible launch which generally translates to lower TWR values  - but I have now reached a stage where money is no longer issue (80 million in the bank) and I want cleanest and fastest orbit and  this design behaves at its best with 1.5+ TWR  up to 10 000 meters (when I tested it before adding last 60 tons on the top). It means I can start turning much earlier and get out of the lower atmosphere much faster than with lower TWR.

Some other design would be excellent at 1.1 TWR but than I suspect it would have been more aerodynamic than what I slapped together.  This design? I would have spent ages spending DV fighting gravity in lower atmosphere.

I see now that you have in your post that your are playing JNSQ mod. Can't compare the designs then, especially if they kept stock components.

 

Edited by IncompetentSpacer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even in JNSQ I usually aim for a launch TWR of 1.4 or so- any less and the gravity losses take their toll, but any higher and it tends to need more fuel which adds more weight and reduces the TWR again.

There isn’t a magic formula for the ‘perfect’ TWR and if I remember correctly the Saturn V had a launch TWR of about 1.1. Higher TWR usually means more expensive engines though which often means that it’s better to use a less powerful main engine(s) and add moar boosters to throw it off the pad and into thinner air where the engines work better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lets see....... I installed RSS/RO/RP-1 for the first time. I also tried to build a rocket in sandbox, but it keeps saying the avionics is insufficient, even though I have the Saturn IB Instrument Package thing (I think that's what it's called). I just want to see how Earth looks like :( 

I'll try tomorrow, I guess!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What did i do today? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Register Fake News for Kerbal Space Program. Then made memes on KSP, and finally finished with a classic... yup, made jeb and vall go on some MORE dates on laythe. Gene Kerman is getting tired of Wasting Millions on these Entertainment dates on Laythe.

Edited by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE
Reason for Edit??? WHAT? I CANT ADD stuff without being questioned!?!?!?! What place is this? China? I wanna edit and edit and edit, edit, edit edit, so please stop asking me "Hey kids ya wanna tell my why you edited this" its getting annoying. XD
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

Reason for Edit??? WHAT? I CANT ADD stuff without being questioned!?!?!?! What place is this? China? I wanna edit and edit and edit, edit, edit edit, so please stop asking me "Hey kids ya wanna tell my why you edited this" its getting annoying. XD

You don't need to actually add the edit reason, it just leaves it as blank then.

 

Anyways, this was not today, it was a couple of days back. 

LTSXmyl.png

5IMkC4E.png

mnmEXLg.png

9GqhF6v.png

9d6Z7oT.png

tkPMY1D.png

1DRpZMj.png

k4HZCix.png

c6D4LZq.png

MUemAPh.png

DjriMtr.png

a9j7OKF.png

v3coKlx.png

 

I should've put this all in a spoiler

Spoiler

Shameless self plug:

This is all from Chapter 6, but I recommend reading all of it :) 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...