What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Axelord FTW]

Well, the return mission earned me 12000 science points, which brought me to 16,000 total now. That, plus the two (somewhat) lucrative contracts to return blueberries and duna ejecta, plus the milestone...
Hot damn!

Nowhere enough money to even buy most of what I can unlock with science points right now, though. I'll set the game aside for now and decide the tech path I'll prioritize. Next step is definitely Jool, which should give me enough science to unlock all the science nodes, which will only leave money and Kerbals as bottlenecks. I'll wait for the Dres Factory to be finished before I do anything else, though. Still has about 300 days of travel to do.

P.S. I also completed the ground science for Ike and Duna, now. The last impactor for Ike gave me a few good pictures. The LH2/Ox engines are always pretty.

 

EDIT: 

Alright, the Jool mission has been designed, and carried out all the way to being parked into mid-high Kerbin orbit waiting for the transfer.
Not only am I sending a Factory up to Jool, but I'm also sending 13 Kerbals in total, to allow for multiple, concurrent missions to happen. It wasn't a problem for Duna and Ike, as the factory didn't need to be working while the crew was up in space, but the Joolian system is broad enough that one factory crew is not enough. Hence, 13 Kerbals: 6 engineers, 4 scientists, and 3 pilots. Christened the Calypso, the vessel (as a whole) has over 7000m/s of dV. More than enough to get there. 

First, I launched all 13 Kerbals to Minmus orbit, while one pilot descended to Skipjack alone. From there, the factory took 4 days to build the Calypso proper. A somewhat large quasi-station on top of an Emancipator nuclear engine. The pilot used the Calypso to get back to orbit, and met with the remaining 12 Kerbals, whence they all transferred over. Next, Skipjack churned out a special Factory Starter, which was probe-controlled (from a lower stage, as to not consume fuel for the eventual landing). It rose from Minmus, and docked with the Calypso on its own (bit of a hairy moment because of poor relay coverage on the far side of Minmus but I got signal just in time). The extra mass added ate 3000m/s of dV (from 10k) but it's not an issue. I could have put 4 extra kerbals on the mission (tot capacity with the factory included is 17) but I ran out of experienced Kerbals again. Engineers that aren't stupid aren't that common for recruitment either. 

Spoiler

The Crew Bus. Got two pretty good shots during launch.

One pilot went down to Skipjack to pilot the Calypso back up. Little ittybitty lander did the trick.

And there it is! As ever, SRBs are funky. I thought about leaving this pilot on Skipjack and coming back with Jeb, but decided not to in the end. One thing I did wrong was the cluster of linear RCS thrusters on the nose. I installed the bipropellant kind instead of the monoprop. Removed them by hand eventually. I've included some spare parts to make a few cubesat relays too.

And there's the factory lander. I'm trying a new(ish) design this time. It's got a very similar layout to its predecessors but it's still a pretty significant remodel.  

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Axelord FTW

[Ben J. Kerman]

I worked more on my Kania trucks, and made a logo for them! I will post pictures/videos soon. I haven't really been going into space recently (in Kerbal Space program, go figure; but hey, KSP is for making and doing whatever you want, no matter how dumb or irrelevant, that's what makes it so cool!)\

Besides that, I didn't really do much.

[RevanX_LSR]

New update for linbol system is out.  Chec itt out on SpaceDock

[qromodynmc]

I made a little surprise to my kerbals on the mun and sent them a car to travel around

 

I terribly regret using that solar panel as i didnt know that they werent retractable.  Guess we gotta do another mission to install new solar panels on it.

Edited December 28, 2021 by qromodynmc

[Kerb24]

I figured out that my career save isn't corrupted, it's just that one craft that is broken.

[Scarecrow71]

Today I built, launched, and landed my very first ever rover in KSP.  The reason is that, after having deployed one of those monster surface scanners and found where the ore is on Minmus, I want to now roam around and use the portable surface scanner to find the best concentrations of ore.  I was really hoping to find a decent concentration next to Prophecy I, but alas, it is not to be.  Anyhow, some screen shots!  First, the rocket I used on the launchpad, and then in LKO:

You might notice in that LKO shot there that the payload "bay" I created for this rover is open to the rest of the universe.  I wanted to go for one of those panels that opened by robotics and all...but KSP has secrets it refuses to tell me on how to use that yet.  So, open-sided (except for the back, which is a solid panel).  Trust me when I say it works. 

As I was sitting there in orbit awaiting the transfer to Minmus, I decided that, if I'm gonna land this puppy and roam around, I'm gonna go hit the Elcano Challenge too.  So, for a point of reference, here are the existing sites I already have on this body:

A couple of flags, and my very first outpost Prophecy I.  I tried to land close to Prophecy I so I had a definitive start and end point.

You'll notice in that second shot that I've got a lander sitting ON TOP of the cargo bay.  That's quickly becoming my favorite way of getting stuff to Minmus (and, potentially, other bodies).  It has enough dV left in it that I can safely get Bob home once he's done with his vacation up there.  Anyhow, I started driving directly north, in the direction of the north pole.  As soon as I got off the flats, I did a surface scan.  14.8% concentration of ore!  That may or may not be a lot; I've never done this before, so to me, hitting 14% on the first scan means I'm doing something right!

I kept driving north, and I nearly ran right into an Olivine Formation.  Too bad I didn't have one of those scan arm things on the rover.

Kept driving north, but the sun's getting really low, big guy.  Took a shot of my progress, but I have to shut the rover down until the sun comes up tomorrow; I don't want to be driving at night and not have any power for my brakes.

That's it for today.  I'm hoping that tomorrow I can at least get to the site of Oracle V on the other side of Minmus.

[Axelord FTW]

Try out fuel cells (if you've unlocked them). They're great for rovers and will last you dozens of in-game hours driving around even with the smallest LF/Ox tank.

Also, YO! That 14.83% of ore concentration is WACK! Anything over 7.5% is good, and 10% is hella rare (most often not present at all on most worlds).

[Echo__3]

I made a Kraken powered spaceship today. A little frustrating to get it working right, but the finished product makes me smile.

 

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, Axelord FTW said:

Also, YO! That 14.83% of ore concentration is WACK! Anything over 7.5% is good, and 10% is hella rare (most often not present at all on most worlds).

Well, then, lucky me on my first shot!  And darned lucky that I marked that spot with a flag!

[18Watt]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Kept driving north, but the sun's getting really low, big guy.

As @Axelord FTW said, fuel cells are helpful. What I prefer is adding an RTG, just in case.

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

; I don't want to be driving at night and not have any power for my brakes.

Yeah, driving at night is a recipe for explosions.  Doesn’t matter how many lights you put on the rover.   

One other tip if your batteries are starting to struggle- turn off the motors for two of the wheels.  Usually just having two wheels actually powering the rover is sufficient, and saves a little electricity.  Of course, some terrain makes having all wheels powered helpful..

All in all, I’d say your rover is perfectly equipped for Minmus.  And I’m jealous of your delivery vehicle, it looks much more graceful than the clunky ships I build to deliver rovers.  

[Scarecrow71]

11 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

And I’m jealous of your delivery vehicle, it looks much more graceful than the clunky ships I build to deliver rovers

Really?  Wow, thanks!  I actually spent 3 hours building and testing it to make sure I could get the rover in it, and that parts weren't clipped, and that it wouldn't collapse in on itself.  I've also got a ladder on the front of it so Bob can climb back up there, and it is attached via a docking port so I can decouple and get out of there quickly.  The only down side, which I have to work on, is that the rover can't attach to the bay again; it has to stay on Minmus.

But thank you for the compliment!

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Today was continued shuttle and station operations, beginning with the original, clipped wing version of the Skua shuttle:

32 passengers and 4 crew to a 360km orbit (The hotel contract required a 350km orbit. Maybe that is the Kerbal version of being in international waters???) At this point I had only a very limited assortment of MK3 parts, with no regular LFO tanks, so some compromises were made, including putting LFO drop tanks on the SRB's, and a disposable Skipper center booster. Still, it launched great and flew well, though the landing speed was certainly up there.

The second version was used to add a lab and science unit to the hotel:

https://imgur.com/bzDCw6j

Unlocking more MK3 parts allowed me to drop the multi-stage center section, though I kept the hybrid LFO/SRB boosters, and extended wing tips slowed the stall speed to slightly below ludicrous.

Undocking and floating the lab over to its new home, then Kergard went out to weld the connection permanently:

Now that there was room in the cargo bay, the crew decided to try out an inflatable hab unit for extended missions:

The newest version, the MK3 Super Skua, increases wing area yet again and includes such improvements as wet wings to transfer fuel to orbit for my nuclear powered Minmus cycler, better RCS, revised landing gear, and a hybrid cargo/passenger design:

Here it's loaded with 8 passengers for excursions to each of the space stations and a pair of docking adapters, one for each. Closing in to Kerbin One and delivering the first adapter:

And after a short visit, boosting up to the hotel to deliver the other adapter and a few more tourists:

 

KoS

 

[dave1904]

I play on 3.5 rescale and need around 5-6 km/s of deltav to get to orbit. Build a 1 million credits 100% reusable rocket to get 40 tons into low orbit. After spending ages perfecting the design and getting every last bit of delta v out of it. I found out that it cost me 350k on methane and LOX alone and that I could build an expendable rocket for less than the fuel cost... Will have to add a second stage with parachutes and heat shield to bring the total weight down.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by dave1904

[Axelord FTW]

@Hyperspace Industries Thanks again for the ideas, though I went a bit further you got the theme right.

Meet Unfound, the newest EL Factory I've made. Incidentally the first time I'd ever landed on Dres too, its construction took over a hundred days to complete, from the moment the Factory Starter first touched down. The purpose of this base was to minimize the number of modules linked with KAS as much as possible, as that can sometime lead to some strangeness upon loading a scene. It's definitely more massive than Sandsail, Brakeless, and Skipjack, as it includes a plant to create some exotic nuclear fuels. This Chonker of a base can store mind-bogglingly huge amounts of various fuels, and house 15 Kerbals in all, though there's nowhere that many present at the moment. 

EDIT:

Spoiler

A few other things have happened in the meanwhile.

Got a contract for scanning some surface feature on Gilly, so I made a 6-axis monoprop-driven craft, with a dorsal lithium-powered pusher to keep it firmly in place when it came time to scan. It also served to complete a gravimetric scan contract on Gilly. Actually had to build it twice because I timewarped the first into a hill by accident. They take less than an hour to build anyway. 
Unfound has also churned out its first crafts. One long-range relay to call home, and three smaller relays to make sure there's always a connection to the first. The totally-overkill lifter for the small relays was then used to get seismic data. I guess a 5 ton craft hitting the ground at over 3 kilometers per second rang Dres hard, because it maxed out the science. Finally, I also sent up a space-telescope with a ludicrous amount of dV for no good reason other than I could. No pics of it, though (that said it's really similar to the main relay craft, just with the large dish replaced and a few tweaks).

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Axelord FTW

[Nazalassa]

Today I crashed the game.

(In fact, I crashed the laptop into the wall while playing KSP, but it didn't break… Just kidding! )

Edited December 29, 2021 by Nazalassa
I just added a "!". While I'm there, how was your day? Mine was pretty Kerbal, with rockets and all the stuff. Also, I m̲i̲g̲h̲t̲ need a new laptop.

[Scarecrow71]

Still traversing Minmus via rover.  According to the surface scans, I'm averaging the following surface ore concentrations:

• 14.5 % in the Lowlands (with a noticeable high of 14.93%)
• 10% in the Midlands (I'm seeing 9.9% - 10.1% consistently)
• 2.8% in the Highlands
• 2.3 % on the North Pole

In fact, a shot from the North Pole:

So, where is this red-suited fat elf everyone keeps talking about?

[Vanamonde]

On 12/28/2021 at 1:46 PM, Kerb24 said:

I figured out that my career save isn't corrupted, it's just that one craft that is broken.

\o/  

[Axelord FTW]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Still traversing Minmus via rover.  According to the surface scans, I'm averaging the following surface ore concentrations:

• 14.5 % in the Lowlands (with a noticeable high of 14.93%)
• 10% in the Midlands (I'm seeing 9.9% - 10.1% consistently)
• 2.8% in the Highlands
• 2.3 % on the North Pole

I'd love to see the scansat heatmap of ore concentration on your Minmus. 15% is REALLY high.

[Scarecrow71]

12 minutes ago, Axelord FTW said:

I'd love to see the scansat heatmap of ore concentration on your Minmus. 15% is REALLY high.

Not sure what scansat is (isn't that another mod?).  But if you look at the images I pasted yesterday, you can see the one with the surface scanner is at 14.83%.

Or are you talking about the image I can get out of the tracking station? 

[Axelord FTW]

Yeah, Scansat is an  mod geared toward surface scanning and merges well with other mods that add in various resources. By default, you can get Altimetry, Slope, Biome, and visual maps of bodies you're scanning, plus an overlay ore concentration heatmap. Completed scans can also yield sciences once per type, per body.

 

EDIT: Also, damn aren't FFT initial tech purchases pricy! Went from over 16 million kosh to 6 million (well, including three new hires)., not to mention 16,000 science to 3,000. All surface factories are getting upgraded, and the MInmus one in particular will start producing antimatter. I guess I'll ONCE AGAIN make a small base on the moon for the purpose of He3 extraction.

EDIT2: All factories have been upgraded, some more than others. One mistake I did was forget to get the argon-collector module from the Duna factory included in the redesign. So I churned out the parts and added everything by hand. Four Kerbals were needed to haul the parts, and I had to build some gantry and scaffolding first so everyone would have somewhere to stand. I was supposed to have two argon tanks (plus a graphite radiator) but the game crashed right after everything was 'done.' The autosave happened while the second tank was being lifted up (thus, in 'flight') and got deleted upon reloading the save, as it would effectively have crashed into the surface in half a second. Still, the argon extractor and one tank was installed successfully. As for cooling the module, I simply hooked it into another loop with similar temperature that had some excess cooling power. Small loss of efficiency but nothing too drastic and I don't need to run the extractor for very long anyway. Also completed a contract for testing a FFT engine in orbit of the sun. I just slapped it on a very large SRB and launched it form Gilly. Good payout, and nothing to thumb my nose at considering the amount of funds I need fork for the initial part purchase. I had a few good kerbals show up for hire, and I dropped as low as 4.5 million Kosh.
 

Spoiler

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Axelord FTW

[Hohmannson]

[dprostock]

Laythe

Thank  Mods - DanGerous Systems

With Jool and Kerbol on top.

 

All on the ground! Moments before the eclipse.

 

Other

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/a/TszH7pI

 

[Axelord FTW]

Going on an adventure. Already did the surface feature scan contract, but might as well go to other biomes, and visit one of the anomalies on Dres. First rover didn't have any reaction wheels and ate crap about 30 minutes NW from the factory. Second rover was sent without the scanning arm and a seat for a Scientist to ride along, mostly to restore the goo and Science Jr. Plenty of reaction wheel torque at hand (almost fudged it up again because stability control does NOT care that you forgot to set the rover orientation correctly but it all ended nicely in the end. Currently on a long drive, over an hour of real time. All the science will be transmitted once, then acquired again for storage in the factory's science lab. The return trip will be rocket powered, I'll just send a taxi instead of driving all the way back.

Also, at 30m/s, this rover gets some serious air.

 

P.S. I also earlier made a many RCS-driven craft as a 'proof of concept' (not that I needed to) as an example to a question in another thread. So small it only took 52 seconds to build in the Gilly factory.
It performed quite well.

EDIT: Good thing the MJ Autopilot can quicksave on each waypoints (which is why I made quite a few between starting point and destination). I'm watching some youtube video then all of a sudden POW! Quick alt-tab back to KSP and, shocker! Goddamn surface features!

Edited December 31, 2021 by Axelord FTW

[N_Danger]

 For some reason I went into the astronaut complex, saw this and had to ask: Why is it only the pilots haven't figured out the program doesn't hire out of the astronaut complex. (I mean that is what rescue contracts are for. And that is the first time I've seen only pilots on the roster before)

As for the space stuff.

More maintenance work. It's a long way to the job site though.

On the way to Ceti. 2 other kerbals are along for the experience points.

And here is the sat that needs the solar panels repaired.

A satellite was  launched for the cash.

 

[Axelord FTW]

32 minutes ago, N_Danger said:

 For some reason I went into the astronaut complex, saw this and had to ask: Why is it only the pilots haven't figured out the program doesn't hire out of the astronaut complex. (I mean that is what rescue contracts are for. And that is the first time I've seen only pilots on the roster before)

Well, I disproportionately hire engineers with low stupidity. It's what I need. Sure, rescue contracts give you a free kerbal and usually as much (if not more) money than it would have cost to hire them in the first place, but it's really more of a surprise candy bag. Sometime, you get black licorice. That said, all pilots...

Spoiler

EDIT: Hit a surface feature with the rover, AGAIN!

Edited December 31, 2021 by Axelord FTW