What did you do in KSP1 today?

[panarchist]

On 9/25/2022 at 6:02 AM, Caerfinon said:

Today was making a new Combi aircraft for carrying passengers and cargo at the same time. Went through a few iterations but ended up with the Dash 9. Similar to the Expediter the Dash 9 has seating for 2 crew and 18 passengers. The cargo bay is roomy enough to to transport a nice size vehicle for further ground exploration. Passenger loading and cargo ramps are to the rear of the aircraft.     

 

Take offs are done in a very small amount of space which is a plus because I plan to fly it mostly to out of the way airstrips

Beautiful plane - what kind of range are you getting out of it? The biggest issue I've had with my planes (and airships) are very limited range. (also, what altitude do you consider to be "crusing altitude" for  this plane?

[Caerfinon]

2 hours ago, panarchist said:

Beautiful plane - what kind of range are you getting out of it?

Thanks. Range is  about 1,400 km with an airspeed of 167 m/s (roughly 3 hours of flight time)  All fuel is in the wings.  I normally cruise between 6000 to 6500 meters when I fly. 

You can find it on KerbalX here: https://kerbalx.com/Caerfinon/Dash-9 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Caerfinon

[N_Danger]

Just the usual Space Station stuff. Launch a supply module

Bring some crew back to Kerbin

Then send some new crew up to the station.

 

 

[panzer1b]

Made 2 new ships, or well 1 of them is a really "fat" starfighter but whatever...

The "Duck" class heavy fighter.  Went with a sort of industrial look to it given that crossed a light utility tug i had laying around for station building/rearranging and the Pidgeon class starfighter that BCorp uses as its primary highly survivable starfighter.

And the SK-XII "Pulsar" class medium recon corvette (sorta inspired by my favorite ship from the Expanse series albeit with AKS styling added and none of the complicated rear bits since i wanted this thing to be super low on parts).  Different enough from the other mainline AKS warships but not so different that it doesnt fit alongside em.  Also nice to not have to armor the living crap out of it since the ship in universe would not realistically engage in combat except in emergencies (its not useless but even light SRMs will take down most of the fuel with 1-2 good hits).  That and it has that massive interdictor engine which gives it higher TWR then 90% of my starfighters and even some torpedoes...

Quite tanky for a starfighter actually, can eat large ibeam weapons and not kaput instantly.  Only major flaw is the somewhat vulnurable open cockpit layout (Pidgeon was very similar but used the mk1 inline cockpit and was somrta smaller with better crew survivability but ofc its more advanced design).  Then again, its a pirate vessel and I usually intentionally give pirate tech some flaws as pirates mostly whack whatever is available together rather then design everything with things like crew safety and high tech weapons.

The 1st fighter was decrewed (survived but both command seats were gone so it was uncontrollable), and the wingman retaliated suprisingly taking down all but a single fuel tank with it's 1st shot (while the Pulsar is not designed to get hit, im surprised how bad it is as is and im going to have to do something to at least make sure a single light weapon salvo doesnt leave it useless with like 200 dV.

And finally i redid the interior of the stealth ship i made earlier, namely adding crew area (its super cramped and not even a single straight hallway due to having to cram said interior in alongside the oddly placed weapons and exterior stealth paneling (lots of angly wings).  Despite that, its not actually THAT cramped since you can move around easily even when kerbals are sitting in the seats.

Thats what the forward command section looks like (after the entire front of the ship was shot off but the Pulsar's drones).  Ship surprisingly isnt that weak either, the fact that the interior is so oddly designed makes it somewhat unlikely for any single medium weapon impact (except a heavy 1.25m torp wich 1 shots it reliably) to do that much damage (cosmetically it gets panels shot apart very easily but the interior and critical bits are rather unlikely to be destroyed without sustained fire).

[Rutabaga22]

9 minutes ago, panzer1b said:

Made 2 new ships, or well 1 of them is a really "fat" starfighter but whatever...

The "Duck" class heavy fighter.  Went with a sort of industrial look to it given that crossed a light utility tug i had laying around for station building/rearranging and the Pidgeon class starfighter that BCorp uses as its primary highly survivable starfighter.

And the SK-XII "Pulsar" class medium recon corvette (sorta inspired by my favorite ship from the Expanse series albeit with AKS styling added and none of the complicated rear bits since i wanted this thing to be super low on parts).  Different enough from the other mainline AKS warships but not so different that it doesnt fit alongside em.  Also nice to not have to armor the living crap out of it since the ship in universe would not realistically engage in combat except in emergencies (its not useless but even light SRMs will take down most of the fuel with 1-2 good hits).  That and it has that massive interdictor engine which gives it higher TWR then 90% of my starfighters and even some torpedoes...

Quite tanky for a starfighter actually, can eat large ibeam weapons and not kaput instantly.  Only major flaw is the somewhat vulnurable open cockpit layout (Pidgeon was very similar but used the mk1 inline cockpit and was somrta smaller with better crew survivability but ofc its more advanced design).  Then again, its a pirate vessel and I usually intentionally give pirate tech some flaws as pirates mostly whack whatever is available together rather then design everything with things like crew safety and high tech weapons.

The 1st fighter was decrewed (survived but both command seats were gone so it was uncontrollable), and the wingman retaliated suprisingly taking down all but a single fuel tank with it's 1st shot (while the Pulsar is not designed to get hit, im surprised how bad it is as is and im going to have to do something to at least make sure a single light weapon salvo doesnt leave it useless with like 200 dV.

And finally i redid the interior of the stealth ship i made earlier, namely adding crew area (its super cramped and not even a single straight hallway due to having to cram said interior in alongside the oddly placed weapons and exterior stealth paneling (lots of angly wings).  Despite that, its not actually THAT cramped since you can move around easily even when kerbals are sitting in the seats.

Thats what the forward command section looks like (after the entire front of the ship was shot off but the Pulsar's drones).  Ship surprisingly isnt that weak either, the fact that the interior is so oddly designed makes it somewhat unlikely for any single medium weapon impact (except a heavy 1.25m torp wich 1 shots it reliably) to do that much damage (cosmetically it gets panels shot apart very easily but the interior and critical bits are rather unlikely to be destroyed without sustained fire).

how do you do space battles?

[Beamer]

The past weeks have been a busy time at the KSC. The ground crews were working hard to keep up with the launch schedule of all the materials that will be sent to Duna and Ike during the upcoming launch window. I've even heard of a few instances where crews had to skip lunch! I'm sure the unions will have a word or two to say about that.

One of the notable launches, or rather two of them were the pairs of miners. By now we are all familiar with the basic template of these cute little mining rovers of which a third iteration was sent up, a dual package for Ike and another dual package for Duna. Before this type of miner became commonplace, things were very different. The initial surface operations on Minmus, The Mun and Ike consisted of huge monolithic mining rovers with large internal fuel storage. Here is a comparison of the miner still operating on Minmus next to the latest version which internally is referred to as the "redundant miner design".

The reason for this name is that the smaller miners are always sent in pairs, so that if one ever breaks down, refueling operations can still continue, and in theory the broken down rover can even be scavenged for spare parts to keep the operational one active for longer. In practice though, their much lighter weight means these small models are much more forgiving of stresses and barring driving accidents they are unlikely to break during normal operations.

The general concept has gone through various iterations. First two pairs were sent to Moho, stationed on opposite sides of the planet so that one pair would always be in sunlight. Later a 3rd pair was sent along to Moho with Sean's Cannery's BottleCan base. This model can be seen on the left here.

In the middle is the version that was sent to Eeloo, which lacks solar panels in exchange for fuel cell arrays and has a more powerful antenna. Finally on the right, and in the previous picture, you can see the latest iteration that is now being sent to Duna and Ike. It has double the mining drills and sports both solar panels and fuel cell arrays. The drills have been placed at more of an angle to reduce the center of mass a bit.

The reason a pair of these is sent to Ike, which already has one of the large mining rigs, can clearly be seen in this picture.

There is a notable sagging of the rig and the left and right sections, which should be perfectly mirrored, don't seem to be connected very good anymore. When this issue first became evident, a mission was executed to add extra struts to the rig which according to the local crew has stabilized the situation for now, but it is clear that this rig has had its best years behind it. According to the crew the Ike surface is very unforgiving to heavy rovers due to its slippery quality and angled crevices and they expect the smaller replacements to do a much better job.

Now you might have noticed the latest viral ad campaign of Flooyd Dynamics Inc regarding their sponsoring of the Duna base. What you also might have noticed is that the design of the base shown in those ads is distinctly different from the design I showcased in a previous entry on my blog. Needless to say I was as curious as you to find out why this design was changed, and indeed simplified so much.

Those with the maths skills to compute volumes of cylinders and other such genius acts of magic had already figured out that the fairing of the initial teaser image Flooyd Inc released was not big enough to house the entire base.

I initially thought they simply couldn't get the financing together for their big plans, so on my rounds through the KSC cafeteria I made a stop at the table of a lone beancounter. I told him my theory and he laughed, pulling a folded paper from his breast pocket. "You see these numbers?" he asked as he unfolded it and waved it in front of my eyes. The sheet was full of numbers. "They're big right?" he continued. I had to admit they were, many of them had more than five digits. "Now if you add them all together," he continued as he turned the paper over and showed me an even bigger number, "you get this. That's how much money the KSP program has. I don't even know what you call this number, that's way above my pay grade!" I was as clueless as him, of course. "Besides," he wrapped up his argument before he continued with his Burrito, "Flooyd pays the entire bill for this one, go ask that guy in the back, he knows why."

This was on the day that Flooyd had released the video of the full base reveal as it was refueling at the orbital station, the one that was sped up about 10 times, with the Yakety Sax tune under it, I'm sure you have seen it at least as many times as I have.

"The guy in the back" turned out to be a safety inspector from the KAA. He explained that just over a year back, when the Aerodynamics Department first started operating their SSTO space planes, there were some concerns among the higher echelons about witchcraft, so a resolution was passed that made it illegal to break the laws of physics. Although this typically doesn't concern the Rocketry Department, the KAA felt that with their Duna base design, they were skirting, and in some places even pushing the limits of what was allowable, so they urged the engineers to simplify the design.

All in all the redesign is not bad, it still sports the double cargo bay to deliver the DunaKopter and DunaBuggy, the upper deck has been replaced by three observation cupolas, and the dual laboratories have been reduced to a single one. Due to its lighter weight the base is more mobile than the original design with electrically powered wheels. Despite its smaller size it has facilities for 45 souls including two luxury cabins for four souls each and up to 30 economy class accommodations (slightly depending on crew size). The base lacks mining and refining equipment, which is why a separate package of redundant mining rovers is sent along with it.

Another interesting launch was a stack consisting of an STO fuel tanker similar to the one at Moho and a large lander design that we have seen versions of around The Mun and Minmus, but utilizing four Aerospike engines rather than a single Wolfhound for better performance in the lower Duna atmosphere. Rather than using a separate booster for the lander it was simply stacked on top of the fuel tanker, which due to its function of carrying large amounts of fuel, and with the help of two SRBs was able to make it to orbit in its entirety.

One base, two miner packages, tanker plus lander. In addition to these double MultiSkan probes are sent to the Duna system on a single booster, these are similar to the Eve version with some tuning in the various sensor sizes and ranges for local conditions around Duna and Ike. Finally a NuKerBus Mk-2rev full of tourists will join the convoy to make a total of six vessels soon to be sent on their way to the Duna system.

The convoy is manned by a notable number of veterans in the program, many of them four star employees who are expected to receive their much desired fifth star on this mission. Accompanying them is a batch of 6 fresh recruits who will be doing their first service out of the Kerbin system on this exciting adventure. We wish them all well!

 

[panarchist]

Today, the Union of Kerbalized Kommunist Republiks launched Stayputnik IV, their first "successful" orbital launch.

The quotes is because thanks to a launch error, rather than a circular orbit, Stayputnik IV went into an eccentric retrograde orbit - but hey, it's stable.

No comment as yet by the Panarchist Space Agency, who had hoped to beat the Kommunists into space. PSA currently hosts Valentina Kermanova, a UKKR pilot and prospective kosmonaut, under an exchange program with the UKKR space agency, Roskosmos.

[ColdJ]

After many many iterations I finally got the cockpit of the Firefly to a shape I am happy with.

[Caerfinon]

Just now, ColdJ said:

After many many iterations

This is the way. 

It looks great!

[LHACK4142]

Inspired by a Blue Angels air show I went to, I built another F-18. It looks and flies really well. The end goal is to have a Blue Angels Delta formation, accomplished with the offset tool, that can detach angels 5 and 6 to form the Diamond Formation. I still have paint the jets and add flags for all the little yellow stuff (US NAVY on the bottoms of the wings and sides of the engines, cursive "Blue Angels" on the fuselage, etc.), which will take awhile.

[Hyperspace Industries]

Built a jet, the ‘vlermuis’ (Bat), a panther, an intake, and some spars to fit the wheels on.

No pics, since I am not at my laptop, but afterburner takeoffs are fun, also I landed on the runway.

also I did an unmodding spree, so now it’s mostly stock, with waterfall, eve, and scatterer, and also atomic age, kas, and a few others.

[Kerbalsaurus]

YEAR 3, DAY 40

At 4:40 UT, Beyond's first attempt at an SSTO took off from the KSC. This flight was not intended to reach space, or orbit for that matter, it was simply a crewed high altitude test flight.

https://imgur.com/Ln0GqWfhttps://imgur.com/Ln0GqWf

Engine start up, and Orca is cleared for takeoff.

Gaining speed to begin an accent to a higher altitude.

2 minutes into the flight, the plane lost control, and started violently spinning. RCS is turned on shortly after, and the plane regains control.

The crew begins their descent. They reached a height of 40 km, and Asus Kerman reports that she could even see the stars! However, with no land in sight, the plane will have to do a water landing.

Going in for a landing.

Landing success! The engines fell off on landing, but the plane is mostly intact. It's picked up shortly after, and brought back to the KSC, where repairs and modifications are going to be done to it.

[Caerfinon]

Bringing home the Mun science

[panzer1b]

On 10/15/2022 at 12:08 AM, Rutabaga22 said:

how do you do space battles?

Fairly simple, there are really 2 ways to do it. 

One is to install BDArmory and part your fleets near geostationary orbit (else the aiming is broken) and just enable guard mode.

The other is to go the stock route, which is mostly turn based (with 1 exception) where you move 2 ships relatively near each other, and either use guided missiles to manually fly in and smack the target, or get em into physics range and point at enemy with unguided dumb weapons.

Fighter dumb firing.

Pirate battlecruiser with visible forward and broadside facing ibeam weapons.

Stock dumb fire weapon example, pretty much the smallest effective weapons ive found is an ibeam pushed by 2-4 sepatrons.  I dont have any good pics of em that arent full on ancient (been messing with fireworks more these days), but even a single flea or hammer SRB fired at the enemy is going to do some damage (if you are ok with the size requirements but want lowest part count per shot possible (technically just need a single SRB and a way to decouple it).

Guided missile example fired from a ground station, not much to it, mine are just a bit more complex with lots of armored bits inside em (to make the damage useful against armor), but basically probe+fueltank+engine is the minimum you need in this case to hit something.

And ofc fireworks.  The number 1 cool thing they added which make excellent weapons.  I like these alot as with the KAL robit controller you can make them automatically fire, and if you use the aim at target autopilot feature, then start firing loop, then swap to the 2nd ship, aim at target and start it's firing loop via KAL, the 2 ships will try to look at each other as much as possible and the guns will autofire solong as the KAL isnt destroyed, the ship has something to reorient with (RCS/wheels) and there is something controlling it (probe or cockpit).  With velocity at 100m/s it wont destroy armor but will gut the internals enabling some nice long drawn out slugging matches, or if you want to kill quickly set the fireworks to 300ish m/s and that will destroy armor but is less reliable with collisions making a bit of a tradeoff.

Finally, if you have the time and a decent machine you can actually mount your firework weapons on turrets, manually have them elevate/turn with controls you arent using (say wheel controls, i have mine rebound to arrow keys so that wheels dont screw with my attitude control) or just something you dont use to toggle shooting say 7890, and just aim the turretys manually sapping back and forth to adjust the aim as the ships get hit and drift around.  It does require some beefy ships to be practical (turrets will have difficulty hitting a smaller target with any consistency but if you have 2 proper capital sized warships feel free to just part 50m from each other and go full broadside with em.

[Beamer]

2 hours ago, panzer1b said:

Fairly simple, there are really 2 ways to do it. 

One is to install BDArmory and part your fleets near geostationary orbit (else the aiming is broken) and just enable guard mode.

The other is to go the stock route, which is mostly turn based (with 1 exception) where you move 2 ships relatively near each other, and either use guided missiles to manually fly in and smack the target, or get em into physics range and point at enemy with unguided dumb weapons.

Fighter dumb firing.

Pirate battlecruiser with visible forward and broadside facing ibeam weapons.

Stock dumb fire weapon example, pretty much the smallest effective weapons ive found is an ibeam pushed by 2-4 sepatrons.  I dont have any good pics of em that arent full on ancient (been messing with fireworks more these days), but even a single flea or hammer SRB fired at the enemy is going to do some damage (if you are ok with the size requirements but want lowest part count per shot possible (technically just need a single SRB and a way to decouple it).

Guided missile example fired from a ground station, not much to it, mine are just a bit more complex with lots of armored bits inside em (to make the damage useful against armor), but basically probe+fueltank+engine is the minimum you need in this case to hit something.

And ofc fireworks.  The number 1 cool thing they added which make excellent weapons.  I like these alot as with the KAL robit controller you can make them automatically fire, and if you use the aim at target autopilot feature, then start firing loop, then swap to the 2nd ship, aim at target and start it's firing loop via KAL, the 2 ships will try to look at each other as much as possible and the guns will autofire solong as the KAL isnt destroyed, the ship has something to reorient with (RCS/wheels) and there is something controlling it (probe or cockpit).  With velocity at 100m/s it wont destroy armor but will gut the internals enabling some nice long drawn out slugging matches, or if you want to kill quickly set the fireworks to 300ish m/s and that will destroy armor but is less reliable with collisions making a bit of a tradeoff.

Finally, if you have the time and a decent machine you can actually mount your firework weapons on turrets, manually have them elevate/turn with controls you arent using (say wheel controls, i have mine rebound to arrow keys so that wheels dont screw with my attitude control) or just something you dont use to toggle shooting say 7890, and just aim the turretys manually sapping back and forth to adjust the aim as the ships get hit and drift around.  It does require some beefy ships to be practical (turrets will have difficulty hitting a smaller target with any consistency but if you have 2 proper capital sized warships feel free to just part 50m from each other and go full broadside with em.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist Always love your pics!

 

[ColdJ]

Still got the internal to do but I think this has turned out reasonably well.

Spoiler

[Caerfinon]

Klaus doing a little deep sea salvage... 

Who knew the black box was really orange? 

[Vanamonde]

7 hours ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

Landing success! The engines fell off on landing, but the plane is mostly intact. It's picked up shortly after, and brought back to the KSC, where repairs and modifications are going to be done to it.

Just a matter of practice now. 

[Rutabaga22]

I used the offset tool to fly some Ravenspears in formation

I tried more, but it nearly melted my CPU

[Kerbalsaurus]

36 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Just a matter of practice now. 

Yup. I’ve only ever made a working SSTO once. The original idea was to make a plane that flew on a rocket, and, well, that only went sooo well . I need more fuel tanks, and possibly more engines too.

[Kerbal123_Furry]

im searching for magic boulder above ike surface in 0.17...

It's such a suffering work...

[Kerbal123_Furry]

in that version the boulder is still exist maybe...

[Caerfinon]

"Samples are the things I take
Driving on the Mun
I hope my wheels don't break 
Driving on the Mun
We can scan forever
Driving on the Mun
We could scan together
Driving on, driving on the Mun"

[ColdJ]

9 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

"Samples are the things I take
Driving on the Mun
I hope my wheels don't break 
Driving on the Mun
We can scan forever
Driving on the Mun
We could scan together
Driving on, driving on the Mun"

Some may say, I'm modding my days away,
No way, and if it's the game I play.
Some say, tomorrow's another day
You stay, Off to the Mun today.

[LHACK4142]

Worked on my F-18 some more. I painted it and started work on the decals. No pictures until it's done, though!

Edited October 18, 2022 by LHACK4142
hey llok new page (why llok??)