What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Cavscout74]

Despite my run of failures in my JNSQ career, today marked a turn-around, with several notable successes - first manned suborbital flight, first polar satellite, first mun fly-by (and impactor)

From the front page of newspapers all around Kerbin, Jeb's view from space:

First polar relay:

Using the same design in an equatorial orbit, was able to achieve HKO.  Big improvement, but still needs more if we're going to reach a geosynchronous orbit.

After achieving a Mun fly-by, mission control redirected the tiny probe into a impact.  After losing signal passing behind Mun, the probe reacquired signal for the last forty seconds of its life, sending back valuable last-minute telemetry

[Marachdrifter]

Alright, so it was a big week for me. 

First I keep messing with EVA construction. Keep in mind I play on an unmodded version.  The problem I had is that when I was building a rover on the Mun, I first had to unload the main body of the rover, and then attached the wheels. However, each time I tried to attached a wheel, the thing keep flying around because the wheels were placed halfway into the ground. 

So I designed that contraption. First I tried to launch the rocket with it already attached to the rocket, but it messed up my balance, so I put all the pieces in cargo, and attached it to the rocket once on the Mun.

 

Once the arm install and secure, I builded the rover attached to it

 

And finally, undocked it, Et voilà, a built on the spot Mun rover !

 

With That done, the new mission was to take a ground sample of Kerbin south pole. I decided to bring a rover with a plane, but I challenge myself to not docked them. And I quickly realized, that KSP does not like that, at all...

So first I builded an heavy transport plane with a cargo hold

 

and a nice rover that fit in the cargo

 

Loaded the rover inside

 

Secured the cargo

 

Bring the onboard tech to secure the cargo properly in EVA construction mode

 

And off we go... and it's halfway around Kerbin, it was very very long. good thing the plane was very stable in flight, so I actually left the plane fly by itself and I took a shower...

 

Ok, I need to work on my landings ! but hey, every one survived, and the rover was still in good shape, it count right ?

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Marachdrifter

[Le Lynx]

I have make a video....in french:

https://youtu.be/-qzaw_x1xww.

[jimmymcgoochie]

A few hours of watching the loading bar trickle upwards repeatedly, disappearing clouds, some plane clipping graphics issues and one missing moon (how do you lose an entire moon!?) I finally managed to update my 1.8.1 RSS/RO/RP-1 game to 1.11.1 and so far (almost) nothing has broken. The only issues so far have been related to various mod settings which I needed to reprogram to match what I had before, and a minor inconvenience related to RCS parts being deprecated due to 1.11 adding switchable RCS models, but RP-1 doesn’t know that so it hides all but the standard 4-way thrusters and I have to rummage in an obscure part of the part list to find the others.

As you might expect for a shiny new version, it got off to an excellent start- on the first launch the first stage engine failed, dropping its satellite in the ocean...

[Cavscout74]

5 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

As you might expect for a shiny new version, it got off to an excellent start- on the first launch the first stage engine failed, dropping its satellite in the ocean...

My new JNSQ career was having a similar day last week - with two back to back second stage engine failures.  On the plus side, the abort system got some extra testing - both launches were an unmanned test of the first suborbital manned launcher.

[ndiver]

After not playing for a while, I made on a small base for Mün / Minmus for my Career

~1030 m/s of delta-v to land from low orbit, RTG under the cupola for the long munar night, cost of 45k

I tried to make it small but in the same time realistic for an small outpost.

I'm considering to allow for extension with extra modules by docking, but not sure how in term of design / efficiency

Edited February 8, 2021 by ndiver

[KerrMü]

After a few weeks without KSP I´m finally back in the game. My graphics card died. This time for good, and yes, it happend while playing KSP. Why do you ask? So I decided to give my PC a few shiny new parts while I´m already on it and what followed was an unpleasant eternity where nothing went to plan. 

6 weeks later (!) almost everything is up and running again. Now I can finally test some ideas I had in the meantime.

Today I tried to build my favorite helicopter. The look came out better than I expected, but I was absolutely sure that it would fly like a pig. But hey, at least it would look nice and shiny while doing so. So after hours of building I hit the launch button for the first testflight and to my absolute shock and amazement... it flies beautifully. In fact it flew over an hour without SAS on, just with trim and minimal pilot input and then smoothly landed on the roof of the VAB. I´m absolutely stunned! This is still very much a WIP but here are a few pics anyway.

I also built another heli and a new shuttle:

this time with a working Canadarm and KAL controlled booster thrustcurve/separation (it´s nice when you can concentrate on flying ) and it´s in about every aspect better than any shuttle I ever tried to build. Launch: smooth, roll maneuver: unproblematic, orbital operations: just cool, reentry: very stable, glide slope: absolutely awful. So yeah. It´s a proper shuttle.

And I´m on and off tinkering with a little walker. Not bad so far, but there´s still room for improvement. And I can´t for the life of me think of an adequate and cool name.

[Pipcard]

1962-09-03 - M-1 launching the Tanpopo recoverable satellite [modified RSS/RO]

[Cavscout74]

Kept working on my JNSQ career, with the first kerbal in orbit, first probe in Mun orbit, plus some aircraft testing and started getting a standardized comm network set up.

Jeb testing out the prototype YCF-01 "Star" jet fighter for contract just after the KSC opened for business

After finishing the jet testing contract, I wanted to test out the airframe some more, so I replaced the Juno's with a "Kraken" prop engine

Val heading up to be the first kerbal to enter orbit - Jeb got the first suborbital flight, so it was only fair for Val to get the next contract

Last sunrise on her second orbit - with only battery power, she couldn't stay up long

Jumping for joy after her safe landing

Marco-1 probe preparing for Mun orbital insertion burn. 

OCR-B comm relay in 600km orbit around Kerbin

Unmanned test of the new "Jabbit 2" launch vehicle, also the first launch from KSC.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Cavscout74

[RIPperSVK]

Today I explored Laythe with my Laythe SSTO spaceplane. The spaceplane has its own ISRU equipment, so it can land on an island, refuel, and continue flying elsewhere (or to orbit).

This is the pilot enjoying the view near Laythe north pole:

 

 

[hoover2701]

Just arrived at the Mun with a probe for my first landing attempt in my current career. It's too late now. Landing will take place tomorrow. Picture taken after insertion burn just before connection loss...

Oh, and here's another screen from landing back on Kerbin after first successful Munar orbit...

Edited February 9, 2021 by hoover2701

[Cavscout74]

I swear JNSQ got harder since yesterday, but I did manage to get another kerbal into orbit while Jeb got tasked to fly the PropStar prototype up to the northern icecaps to investigate a strange signal picked up by our polar comm relay. 

Jeb flying over the ice, getting his first glimpse of the sun - the whole flight had been at night

Images taken in the vicinity of the signal source have been classified at the highest level.....

Spoiler

 

 

Kelrik Kerman descending after 2 orbits, becoming the 2nd kerbal in orbit and the first non-pilot

What was supposed to be a geosynchronous comm relay failing to reach the correct altitude.  Ended up in a 6100x2100km orbit.  It will still help with communications, but doesn't complete the contract. 

[jimmymcgoochie]

I finally put together a Moon lander that can feasibly get from Earth’s surface into Earth orbit (barely, and running on fumes in the second stage at that point), then on to Lunar orbit, then down to the Moon’s surface (not easy with a 10 minute burn time!) and... It tipped over. There was enough delta-V left to get back into orbit, probably, but thwart I failed to check was that once the landing stage is depleted the entire lander becomes very top-heavy and the landing legs weren’t wide enough plus I landed on a slight slope with a bit of downhill horizontal velocity. Some design changes were made to improve stability- moving the landing legs out a bit- and I’ve started building the launchpad needed to actually launch the thing, as the rocket needed to put the lander plus transfer/capture stage is far too heavy for the existing pads.

[Martian Emigrant]

Hey all.

 

Yesterday, I finished a career play but took a contract just because I like doing landings with an actual target.

New Guy flew an OP lander to Minmus to rescue Newer Guy still.

 

Funny thing.

 

The pilot (Sole occupant) seem to sit in the right seat like an helicopter pilot.

Not that that matters.

But the throttles are on the left and out of reach....

Oh. Another thing. After countless mission to moons and planets. I forgot parachutes.....Again. Can't seem to learn.

But it worked out. NG bailed and parachuted safely while NGS (Who didn't have a parachute) bailed from the top hatch and flailed safely in the ocean.

He hit at about 55 m/s. I didn't try taking control of him. He was horizontal face down when he "Landed".

ME

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by Martian Emigrant

[Guest]

I'm trying to figure out how to make a precision landing on Laythe with a payload where the only control I have post-reentry is when to deploy the parachutes. It is not going well. Closest I've gotten to my target so far is about 25 km.

[JIMMY_the_DOG]

Docked a mk1 shuttle to my space station (M.O.S.S. ((Manned Orbital Space Station)) ) for the first time in LKO. I actually wanted to see if I could even get close and then I saw I had a bunch of delta-v left, so I went in for the dock! I also sent a probe to sarnus (it later got ejected because I forgot to put it in a moon-safe orbit  

[vv3k70r]

I tested electric plane with smallest motors, docking port and all science. And it should looks like paper plane from school. It shows to be extremaly stable in flight, can turn back in "place" in air and fly. For landing reversing thrust few meters above ground allow it to land on spot.

Started here, but cockpit was unacessible for Kerbals:

changed cockpit:

file:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2390892608

Edited February 10, 2021 by vv3k70r

[hoover2701]

First touchdown on Mun...

[Cavscout74]

My JNSQ career managed to get a probe landed on the Mun and a geosynchronous relay in place:

Surveyor-1 after sunrise, gathering photo & soil samples

GeoComm-1b in geosynchronous orbit of Kerbin

Edited February 11, 2021 by Cavscout74

[Misguided Kerbal]

Another page! Time to screenshot spam describe my doings in KSP again!

 

First things first, I decided it would be nice to experiment with spaceplanes! I was definitely inspired by @Raptor9's awesome SVR-10 spaceplane, which I've used before. For a quick test, I decided to strap it to my Thunderbird epic name right launcher and see how it went.

 

I tried to get Mechjeb to try and fly it, but Mechjeb wanted to do cartwheels instead so I decided to fly it manually. Apparently I forgot about lofted trajectory settings in Mechjeb, so I decided to fly it myself.

 

Man, I love those NFLV cryogenic plumes.

 

We made it into orbit with a lower margin in the second stage than which I was comfortable with (100 m/s left, while usually I have around 500 m/s left in the second stage, but that's just me I suppose), but considering the fact that this was bashed together quite quickly, I had no major complaints.

 

 Loving that Realplume + NFLV. I have got to donate to their respective coffee funds once I can.

 

Anyways, I decided to rendezvous with the first prototype of the EV interplanetary vehicle series (That one. The one that did my first successful Duna mission! Except this first one looks nothing like them because I was experimenting.)  mainly because it was the one of the only things left in LKO that didn't have a filled-up docking port.

 

Mechjeb did the rendezvous as usual, but I did the docking manually because I like docking (if albeit the 'lazy' way ). I did an oopsie and didn't add any RCS on the spaceplane section itself, which wasn't very well thought out, but in the end I got the docking.

 

An orbit later, our unmanned prototype undocked and I decided to try and do a KSC landing. The closest I've gotten to that is landing on the continent west of the KSC with my X-5 (or was it X-1.2? I forgot.)

 

Reentry was okay, but it decided to flip out about halfway through the reentry (duh, there's no RCS thrusters).

 

We made it out scot-free with nothing except the Jet engines overheating slightly. However, I actually lost about a 1000 meters in altitude and most of my speed with it flipping out until I realized I'd left the control surface disabled throughout the reentry, which was a dumb move.

 

This plane however, wasn't quite designed for flying very well. It tends to be flip-happy, if you nose up too much it'll end up in a flat spin. The onboard jet engines also proved to be more of a nuisance than a help, but that was mostly due to my terrible flying skills as I like to stick to rockets and capsules.

 

Due to the mistakes above, we couldn't get all the way to the KSC as we had lost most of our speed and the plane kept flipping out even with SAS locked to prograde and constant adjustments, plus jet engines. In the end I decided to just land on the flat desert stretch west of the mountains west of the KSC. 

 

Landing wasn't too hard, as we had shed most of our speed and we were only coming in at around 50 m/s, and we had pretty powerful brakes and a drogue chute (My camera-fu skills couldn't capture it). 

 

And so... back to the VAB for a redesign session!

This time I actually included RCS thrusters, and an abort system (TWR is too low for an abort straight off the rocket, but hey, we have 20 m/s if you need it!)

 

Here it is with the service module. While the Sphinx engine was cool, I decided that a regular docking port was more useful, but I kept the inline one anyway. One can never go wrong with more docking ports. I mean hey, look at those docking port kraken drives!

 

Anyways, I designed a new generic lifter for this plane, and I dubbed it the Phoenix shuttle (I've been wanting to use that name so long, but I suck at making spaceplanes/shuttles/things that fly in general). I also crewed it with the most experienced Kerbals we have (we're in sandbox mode, so that doesn't really matter but who even cares?): Roddock, Hanmund, and Dilgar VonKerman (from the VonKerman thing! If you remember!), as Val was away on the first Duna landing mission, and Jeb and the crew were in LKO awaiting the Eve transfer window.

 

I was feeling optimistic, so I let mechjeb handle the ascent (and I finally remembered how to edit the ascent path!), and I set the ascent curve to 80% with the majority of the gravity turn starting at 10000. 

 

Everything went fine until we reached stage separation, in which Mechjeb decided to do more cartwheels. Luckily I disabled it and got it all back under control.

The blue plume of the Skiff engine was quite different from the red one, but I like it quite fine.

Anyways, everything was fine and dandy until we reached my refueling station, where I intended to arrive at to just dock at it, as it had many docking ports available (forgot about that while testing the first one). And well...

The refueling station seemed to have been kraken'ed. Which was bad.

 

Spoiler

Please help out if you can:

 

 

Long story short, I docked to it properly but everything on it was damaged except for the ANTS-2 tug. More information can be seen in the thread in the spoiler. Anyways, I undocked from the kraken'ed station and decided to do a reentry again. (Spoiler: The kraken'ed station was a bad omen)

 

Stage separation was trivial, and I added separatrons on the service module to increase ease of use, which was nice. This time, I remembered to turn both RCS and the control surfaces on.

 

That was fine until we ran out of monopropellant. Luckily by then the control surfaces had alright control authority, and we had decent reaction wheels onboard so I took a couple of S-turns.

 

Sadly though, since we undershot last time I overshot this time before reentry (according to the handy Trajectories mod at least), but luck failed us and we overshot too much. So, I decided to aim for the continent west of the KSC again, like my previous spaceplane landings. 

No dice. We were losing speed and altitude too quickly due to those rather harsh S-turns, and this version didn't have any jet engines onboard. Oh well.

 

And so we ditched in the sea. I actually managed to screenshot the drogue this time. Impact was at a rather uncomfortable 28 m/s, but miraculously everything survived except for the hemispherical fuel tank at the back, which was destroyed. All things considered, this mission could have turned out much, much worse!

 

 

Also, I did a side-trip to visit my kerbals at the Duna landing site (the first one in fact!):

A few of the experiments were disabled, so I sent Barbora the scientist out to reenable-them.

Then I sent Leo out to inspect the other systems:

I discovered that the ladder on my Duna lander wasn't designed very well, as Kerbals could only climb down but they couldn't climb up. Luckily the jetpack works on Duna, but I did manage to get Leo on the other ladder section by spamming the F key. Insert spam f in the chat meme

 

Leo to his grandkids: "Well, getting stuck in the docking port wasn't part of the mission plan... but I did it anyway. I swear I was the first person on Duna to do so. Valentina taking the first steps? Bah! She hasn't gotten stuck in a docking port!"

 

Anyways, I did a little bit more of experimenting involving climbing back on and trying to parachute, but in the end I got all the Kerbals back in. They have still a year before the transfer window, so I might send them on walking expeditions if I have the patience.

 

Also, I sent a Kerbal out to survey a newly discovered launchsite built on Baikerbanur. (this wasn't in the Kerbal Konstructs menu, but I presume it was added by Kerbinside Extended:

Other than the old VAB being stuck in the Taxiway, everything else is fine and Dandy! I think I'll be conducting VonKerman operations from here, as this makes a nice compliment to the Kojave Sands Launch Center.

[Hotel26]

6 hours ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

Long story short

What does this phrase actually mean these days?  I mean, I know what it meant (as recorded in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)) when I was in prep school (ca. 1927), but when people say it now, what do they truly mean?  Is it some kind of coded signal to be read in the future to signify, "this is the Glorious Day Our Revolution commenced".

Because, clearly, I am not that Revolutionary.  I am largely (totally) unfamiliar with the Cause.  Whatever that may be.  The "Revolution for Brevity", for example?  Non, I do not think I have the grasp...

And I read (and enjoy) every word[*] -- and then, every time -- add a Like!!  But just so baffled by those three simple words.  Formerly-simple words; now hopelessly redefined in newspeak.

Signed, Perplexed.

[*] but alas the screenshots (je m'inquiète interminablement de la déforestation mondiale...)

-> <-

Edited February 11, 2021 by Hotel26

[Guest]

I'm still working on the problem of delivering a fairly heavy (ca 30 ton) payload to Laythe ballistically. My initial design shed its fairing already on departure from Kerbin, which made it really draggy but also with a variable aerodynamic profile. This meant that re-entry behaviour is pretty chaotic, and I simply can't get it predictably delivered with more than 50 km accuracy, which is about an order of magnitude from where I want it to be.

I'm now working on a redesign which has the payload wrapped in a fairing all the way to the destination, with a ring of airbrakes around it. This way it stays on a predictable trajectory and I have some control over slowing it down. The airbrakes also stabilise it very well. My hope is that with practice I'll be able to deliver it precisely enough – set a re-entry corridor to overshoot the target, then use the airbrakes to drop it on it. Once the chutes are deployed I really can't do much; I have retro-rockets for killing off the last 30 m/s, but they don't help much with lateral movement.

(It's an integrated base, inspired by the lovely designs from Lowne Aerospace.)

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by Guest

[KerikBalm]

Got around to updating mods for KSP 1.11.1 and trying it out.

SigmaDimensions is working, and Rald rescales properly, with the new shaders... looks quite nice.

Spoiler

although the sky was bluer than I remember it being... as in this 1.10 version:

Anyway, decided to continue my career save... went and checked what was going on with my main mothership to Duna-Rald in the 3x system

Spoiler

A nice looking ship if I say so myself, but it was build before 1.11. Luckily Hitchhiker containers have a lot of storage space, so I just needed to send up a supply ship...

The main ship (along with all other ships for the mission), was orbiting Mun (placed where Minmus normally would be) where its tanks were topped off, so I needed my supplyship to make it to Mun (about 1,800 m/s needed in 3x from LKO).

So I used my standard 2 stage fully reusable launcher to send a craft that was basically a poodle, an orange tank, a 2.5-1.25m adaptor tank, 3 of the large cargo storeage units (with various do-dads packed inside), and control systems(probe, RCS, power, antenna).... it ended up having a dV of a few thousand m/s... and weighing under 50 tons.

My standard launcher was meant to take 100 to 150 ton payloads to orbit:

Spoiler

This was overkill for the mission. The second stage got into orbit with enough dV remaining to punt the payload to Rald, and then brake to stay in kerbin SOI.

So... that's what it will do. The supply ship will rendezvous with the mothership at Rald, rather than at Mun, and will basically arrive full fueled.

Makes me wonder if I should send another such supply craft, full of even more random parts - for flexibility on arrival...

I don't know what I may want to build there, so I figure for such a long term mission, I should have a diverse supply of .... stuff...

[Misguided Kerbal]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

je m'inquiète interminablement de la déforestation mondiale...

Pas de soucis, car ils sont tous stockés sur une invention appelée `` ordinateur ''  

 

Spoiler

For those too lazy to google translate:

No worries, as they are all stored on an invention known as the 'computer'

 

[Caerfinon]

A little automotive design... Bill likes to ride in style KerbalX: Utility Truck