What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Hotel26]

Working on a stowable rover for a Mk3 cargo bay.  (It might still be too wide.)

 

Spoiler

44 m/s on the flat.

I'm thinking about squeezing a couple more wheels amidships (non-extensible) to get more drive.

Code-name is Insecticide.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Hotel26

[chadgaskerman]

44 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

Working on a stowable rover for a Mk3 cargo bay.  (It might still be too wide.)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

44 m/s on the flat.

I'm thinking about squeezing a couple more wheels amidships (non-extensible) to get more drive.

Code-name is Insecticide.

I think your best bet instead of retracting the wheels would be to fold them underneath the chassis

[Akagi]

Photo edit of @Nazalassa's monorail

[Nazalassa]

2 minutes ago, Akagi said:

Photo edit of @Nazalassa's monorail

Looks cool!

 

I'm wondering, should I use Mk3 long tanks for the track or something else that will require more parts?

[BadOaks]

I've started assembling a crew transfer vehicle for reaching Duna, the first step of which was designing a launch vehicle. My previous heavy lifter, the Driver IV, looked a bit goofy with a large enough fairing, so I ended up making a fresh design that nonetheless tried to maximize parts commonality. The Driver V uses all of the same engines as the Driver IV, the same launch support structure, and is about the same size (could use the same assembly building). It's main features are a cavernous 7.5m diameter payload envelope which makes up over half of the rocket's length, and the capability to lift up to 65 tons to LKO. 

Driver IV (previous heavy lifter)

Driver V (new chonk)

Today I launched the first 2 modules of the crew transfer vehicle. Below is the main LH2 tank on top of a Driver V upper stage.

The tank rendezvoused and docked with the NTR propulsion module already in orbit.

After docking, the expendable thruster frame for the tank detached and deorbited itself.

 

[Hotel26]

(After a long and torturous week, when I need to relax, I either go kayaking or I build an airport.)

This is Kotter Municipal Airport.  It just sprung up in the middle of nowhere.  (0/164.6 W, to be exact.  90 degrees before KSC...)    [click + arrows => slideshow]

     

Of course, I had to strap into the Seiza (Constellation) and take a quick spin in the pattern to test it (the airport)...

What I favor about the layout of this airport is that you can land at the far end and finish your roll at the terminal; departing straight back onto and from the near end, to pour the kero...  on a windless day, anyway. 

      

Kotter is another "slide rule" airport, in which I place 5x 300mx300m 'decals' along the runway bed (endpoints, a midpoint and two quarterpoints), causing the minimum environmental disturbance and minimizing earth-moving as well.

Slotting pieces together and getting them level is always a tedious time-consumer, so I can see myself soon automating that, especially for this kind of "cookie-cutter" airport.

"Your coordinates, please --and, of course, the check, if you will....."  STAMP.  "Your airport, sirs..."

It's been a pleasure, as we say in the business world.

There's, truthfully speaking, no municipality here in Kotter; not yet.  (It's just a waypoint for returning space vehicles.  (Space Agency paid for this one!))

Build the airport, though, and the people will come.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Hotel26

[swjr-swis]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

There's, truthfully speaking, no municipality here in Kotter; not yet.  (It's just a waypoint for returning space vehicles.  (Space Agency paid for this one!))

Build the airport, though, and the people will come.

I was always told that truck stops offer the best food along the high ways. I'm sure the kerbals appreciate a good source of snacks in the middle of nowhere.

[ColdJ]

Inspired by @Nazalassa I whipped up a structural channel that is wider than an I beam and 10 times the length as a proof of concept to see f a monorail would work. Has potential.

Spoiler

Almost had the Shiny mod done and then decided to that if I had a Cyber truck and a Cyber Quad that I should have a Cyber Jet Ski. So having done that I will have to get some sleep before finishing. I seriously love jet ski-ing on Kerbin.

Spoiler

Sky One from the old series "UFO" is almost done, then I will have to make Diver One to go with it.

Spoiler

 

[Caerfinon]

1 hour ago, ColdJ said:

Inspired

You are inspiring! Nice work 

[miklkit]

Landed at Ike and got my closest landing ever.  Now it's only a matter of time until I land on top of something.

[Leopard]

spent a bit of time testing my Kerbal Simpit controller, Raspberry Pi driven touch screen thingy.. still very much work in progress but works, needed a mission so sent a probe to Eve's surface

the second one even made it

[adsii1970]

4 hours ago, ColdJ said:

Inspired by @Nazalassa I whipped up a structural channel that is wider than an I beam and 10 times the length as a proof of concept to see f a monorail would work. Has potential.

A long time ago, back in v. 0.22 or 0.24 as I do not remember which, someone did a KSPesque railroad using this method.

[Nazalassa]

I did some experiment for the IIC mod:

Ooh, the poor ice cream...

[ColdJ]

My latest mod "S.R.C" Shiny Retro Cyber is now on Spacedock.

My mind is a dangerous thing when I am trying to finish a mod. I ended up adding A jet ski, an extending roof rack that docks the ski so you can transport it to the water, undock and slide it in and go back up and dock when you return. On a whim, now knowing how to, I created transitioning wheels that can go from driving to being hover engines like in Back to the Future.

Hope people have some fun with this.

https://spacedock.info/mod/3096/S.R.C#info

 

[N_Danger]

It was just a chill day as Alice went on EVA

The job was to place hand holds, re-arrange the thermal control system and, move the 2 solar panels from the core to the trusses.

 

Moving the solar panels.

And the finished job. now it is time for a well deserved snack.

[Caerfinon]

A Probe's Life...

It started on the launch pad

Escalated to orbit

Becoming a deorbit burn far away

Resulting in some yummy Mun science for the lads in the lab back home. 

 

[Robin Patenall]

I have, after far too much time, finished my "visit all the Mun biomes (except that one which is inconveniently placed) in a rover" project. I blame all the "visit the South pole of Kerbin" posts.

There was originally a large scanner arm which got removed after I'd scanned everything and the lander engines were originally to be decoupled once I landed. I'm glad I left them on, even if it meant moving the solar panels.

All science, except the material science bay (which is inconveniently big for a rover) collected for future MPL processing  from every biome except the Southwest Crater. And a Mun Stone, Mun Crater and Mun Large Crater scanned with a large scanning arm.

I thought I'd note down some brief tips for anybody who wants to do the same thing:

1. Don't
2. Driving a rover on the Mun takes practice, you will crash (a lot)
3. As you will crash (a lot), set up a timer for 10 minutes and when it goes off, stop the rover and quick save.
4. You can't go that fast, if you do then any bump will send you rover tumbling and explode. The fastest I managed (without crashing) was about 20m/s and I was desperately trying to brake, I tried to keep it at about 10m/s and used physics wrap x 2 (or x 3 when it was really flat)
5. At high speed repeatably tapping the brake is better than holding it down (think abs) 
6. I found the following mods helpful:
   • NavHud Renewed This was really helpful in showing an artificial horizon and showing if you were going up (get ready to hit W), you were going down (spam the B key) or sliding (prograde and attitude don't match). It also made it easier to follow the contours of the Mun (begin on a slope and adjusting your direction so that you aren't going up or down and picking up uncontrollable speed)
   • ScanSat a zoomed in, high resolution, altimetry window was the best I could find for navigation. Lock it to the current vessel so you don't have to play with it as you move. 
   • Waypoint Manager 
7. Craters suck, if you can see it from orbit or on the ScanSat altitude map then it's going to be difficult to get into in one piece (getting out is slightly easier)
8. Craters suck, the maps don't show the small ones, but a 5m fall into one will still destroy your rover.
9. To do the highland crater I picked out, I had to use my lander engines to jump in and out. Other highland craters may be easier, but probably won't be.
10. Near the poles suck, there are lots of steep slopes and rucked terrain. I used my lander engines a couple of times rather than make huge detours.
11. You need to plan your route significantly in advance otherwise you'll have to make huge detours. Every time you stop to do a quick save, zoom out and check where you're going
12. Don't swerve around ground scatter objects, you can pass through it and you're more likely to tip over if you swerve late.
13. Do swerve around Breaking Ground objects as you'll just launch yourself into the air and explode if you hit them.
14. You can tell the difference between these as ground scatter objects are grey and Breaking Ground objects are gray.    
15. Yes, I cheated and landed more fuel for my lander engines to go from the Polar Lowland at the top of the Polar Crater to the Northern Basin. The poles suck.
16. Pick a better path than I did.
17. But mostly, don't

[Krazy1]

1 hour ago, Robin Patenall said:

I found the following mods helpful:

Nice list... I'd add KER: vertical speed and slope help a lot. I usually use a lander with ISRU instead of driving more than a few km. Except trying to hop close enough to do an arm scan is hard. 

[Geonovast]

2 hours ago, Robin Patenall said:

You can't go that fast, if you do then any bump will send you rover tumbling and explode.

The best way I've found to counteract this is to have a couple reaction wheels on the rover.  Set them to SAS only and leave SAS on stability assist.  This way the reaction wheels will try to keep the orientation of the rover stable while ignoring your control inputs (so it doesn't pitch forward when you try to drive forward).  You can flip the SAS on/off with F (T will toggle it on/off, F will flip its state only when held) so you can re-set the held orientation when driving on big banks or going up/down hills

You can also put some RCS on the thing that you can use to orient and soft-land in the event you do get thrown up upwards or accidentally fly off a cliff you didn't know was there.

[Caerfinon]

It's not a job if you are having fun with your mates! 

[Beamer]

Today was the day of the first cooperation between the Rocketry Department and the Aerodynamics Department since the Kerbin government officially designated aerodynamics as magic rather than science (leading to some interesting tax benefits). Despite the ongoing name-calling on Kwitter, the Engineers and Scientists from Rocketry and the Witches and Mages from Aerodynamics seem to have put their differences aside long enough to come up with the hardware for this mission.

The Aerodynamics Department contributed the use of a specially configured cargo model of their SSTO Spaceplane Mk-2rev to deliver a small probe to LKO. Take-off on the 4 Rapier engines and orbital injection with the 2 Dart engines went as planned. The Witch on piloting duty complained that his broom was somewhat nose heavy (to which the Engineers from Rocketry were quick to respond on Kwitter: "A nose heavy plane flies badly, a tail heavy plane flies once") but it reached LKO successfully to deliver its payload.

Deployment of the "Kerbin Orbital Kleaner" (the Scientists from Rocketry seem to have a more lively imagination than the Mages from Aerodynamics) was "A-OK" as the Rocketry crew monitoring the little probe commented, and that they "wouldn't say that the witch on duty was a steely-eyed rocket man" but that he was "at least a good egg".

On return to KSC the mighty Spaceplane seemed to overshoot the runway at high altitude when it made a 180 degree flip and fired both its Rapier and Dart engines, plummeting to the ground until it finally gained enough speed to regain lift before making a perfect landing in reverse direction, coming to a halt exactly at the Vehicle Assembly Building off-ramp. When asked the Witch commented he needed to burn off some excess oxygen to reduce landing weight and that "it's a kind of magic, you wouldn't understand."

Meanwhile the Kerbin Orbital Kleaner was put to work.

As can be expected, the boffins from Rocketry were more interested in producing some spectacular explosions and fireworks in the Kerbin night sky for all the space fans out there.

After cleaning up several more small derelict capsules and cabins from LKO, the little probe that could was parked at the Orbital Parking Facility for a well deserved rest and refreshing drink.

All in all a successful mission for both departments, let's hope this makes future operations go a little smoother with less public animosity.

In other space news, the mission to Eeloo and the Dres Station expansion that were sent to orbit 2 months ago have both left Kerbin this week to start on their long trips, we wish their crews well, especially the unlucky few on the exceptionally long and dull trip to Eeloo.

Furthermore four new recruits were volunteered after being picked up from LKO who will join five others already recovered at Kerbin Station on the traditional flag planting ceremonies on The Mun and Minmus before reporting to KSC for duty. We expect them back in a few weeks as they will reportedly be flown in by a crew version of the Aerodynamics Department's Spaceplane. For those interested. a chanting session for their safe return will be organized next Tuesday at the newly opened Church of Aerodynamics, led by Grand Magister Munman Kerman.

 

[Caerfinon]

Flying to all the old familiar places... I love Uberdam. 

[Hotel26]

6 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

Flying to all the old familiar places

You've gotten a lot of air miles from that Latitude, Captain....

Spoiler

Hey, why are the lights stuck on...?

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Hotel26

[Caerfinon]

2 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

You've gotten a lot of air miles from that Latitude,

It's the workhorse of the fleet.  more importantly, it is fun to fly.  Lighting curtesy of Crew Light all occupied spaces automatically lit, and navigation lights automatically on at night. 

[Hotel26]

6 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

automatically on at night

Check your screenshot over Uberdam above: seems suspiciously sunlit to me... 

Well, you said "occupied", so OK, but this seems like a very familiar 'tic' to me. 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Hotel26