What did you do in KSP1 today?

[BadOaks]

Continued from here.

Jeb, Bill and Bob boarded the KTS Saskia and descended to the surface. After several... simulations... it was apparent that landing would be a little more challenging than anticipated. Fortunately Jeb was able pull it off, landing within 200 meters of the cargo dumper.

Bill waited a few hours for the glare to die down a bit, then started setting up the base. The main feature of the new outpost will be an automated drill rig configured for metallic ore, minerals, substrate, rare metals and exotic minerals. The fact that it's automated means that, once set up, it will keep running even after the crew return home. By the time a second mission arrives on the next transfer window, it will have been stockpiling resources into planetary logistics for over 3 years.

It's a beautiful first morning on Duna!

Bob and Bill took a walk outside to do some science.

This is my favorite shot from the mission so far. We are very far from home.

(Sorry if my posts are a little image-heavy! If it's a problem for anyone let me know and I'll try to tone it down.)

Edited May 25, 2018 by BadOaks

[BadOaks]

5 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

I totally didn't make this to delay the inevitable or anything.

Not at all

...I'm excited.

[putnamto]

failed numerous times to get my mun hopper from my surface station to the far east crater, and back.

eventually got so frustrated i just smashed the thing repeatedly into my base....then when i calmed down i dismantled it with KIS/KAS, put the parts that might be needed later in a box, transferred part of the fuel to the station, then blew it up with explosives.

[RealKerbal3x]

Today I messed around with @Nertea's awesome Stockalike Station Parts Expansion Redux mod and created a small, single launch station in a polar orbit. Images in spoiler:

Spoiler

Here's one of the POLAB (Polar Orbiting LABoratory)'s crew on EVA (I forget his name)

The view from inside SSPxR's 1.25m Cupola module.

The full station, with its return pod and solar arrays.

Hilsy Kerman on EVA near those solar panels.

The IVAs in this mod are niiiiice.

Having fun in space!!!

If you like to build space stations, this mod is great!

[Cyrious]

Right now. I'm attempting to develop a Power/Thermal map of the Kerbol system. As we all know, as solar panel temperatures change, their efficiency goes up and down in accordance to how far off from the optimal temperature they are. On top of that, their output also changes according to how close or how far they are from Kerbol. The end result would be to figure out where and when it would be optimal for solar powered probes and craft to add additional radiator mass in order to get that extra bit of power from the panels.

While this isn't that useful for the stock Ion engine, mods like Near Future Propulsion which have a wide variety of ion engines could see great use from such a map.
 

As for the data points themselves, I'm using 4 solar arrays for the testing, 2 stock, 2 mod (OX-4L 1x6 and the Gigantor XL for stock, and NF Solar's K5K 1x3 and K90 Trio for the mod arrays). Distances include the Perihelion and Apohelion of every stock planet and planet in OPM, as well as the point around Kerbol where the temperature is about 1000K.

Right now my biggest issue in making the data table for the map is the fact that it takes forever for thermal equilibrium to be reached, and using timewarp to speed it up throws off the thermal radiation/absorption as read out by Kerbal Engineer. Map's no good if it isn't accurate after all. Anyone know of a mod that would allow for more direct thermal manipulation instead of waiting hours for the thing to heat up/cool down?

[mystifeid]

Found a pointy mountain on Vall.

[JadeOfMaar]

I tried some Buffalo Wings

And there's actually a Microwave Oven (science part) in there so the crew can always have them warm when it's time to grab a bite. Well, the oven was not in there yet at the time of this screenshot or it would have shown in [x] Science!

Problem?

Edited May 25, 2018 by JadeOfMaar

[RealKerbal3x]

1 hour ago, mystifeid said:

Found a pointy mountain on Vall.

Cool! Is it an easter egg or a terrain glitch, do you think?

[HalcyonSon]

3 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Today I messed around with @Nertea's awesome Stockalike Station Parts Expansion Redux mod and created a small, single launch station in a polar orbit. If you like to build space stations, this mod is great!

I need this in my life.

 

Have they fixed the "ten million notifications" bug yet in 1.4?

[RealKerbal3x]

1 minute ago, HalcyonSon said:

I need this in my life.

 

Have they fixed the "ten million notifications" bug yet in 1.4?

I believe it was fixed in 1.4.3, but I don't play career mode much so I'm not sure.

And as SSPxR is just a parts pack, I think it should work OK in 1.3.1. Not sure about the dependencies though. I'd ask @Nertea on the mod's thread.

[mystifeid]

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Cool! Is it an easter egg or a terrain glitch, do you think?

It did show up briefly as an anomaly but is not listed as an easter egg in the wiki.

Edited May 25, 2018 by mystifeid

[DeltaDizzy]

2 minutes ago, mystifeid said:

It did show up briefly as an anomaly but is not listed in the wiki.

Is it at the north or south pole? If it is, I know what it you've found.

Edited May 25, 2018 by DeltaDizzy

[mystifeid]

1 minute ago, DeltaDizzy said:

Is it at the north or south pole? If it is, I know what it you've found.

No, it's not at the poles - it's actually not far from the equator.

Here's a shot from further away - it was a bit steep to land close by, hence the rover.

[adsii1970]

Preparing for a dawn flight...

but what's that on the horizon?

[DeltaDizzy]

1 hour ago, mystifeid said:

No, it's not at the poles - it's actually not far from the equator.

Here's a shot from further away - it was a bit steep to land close by, hence the rover.

well i dont know what it is then. Hopefully you can find out eventually.

[Delay]

Fixed my plane from yesterday. For some reason it flies perfectly now, and I haven't done anything other than replacing the wings.

And I also tried building a Mk3 airplane that basically looks like a DC-10... except it only has the tail engine. You can probably imagine how that went.

[CobaltShock]

@BadOaks

Something about bases in arctic regions of planets just gets me. Looks glorious 

[Cyrious]

Continued from here.

First tidbits of data are in. At about 1,200,000km Kerbol orbit (which came within the ballpark of 1000 kelvin), the panels achieved these outputs (Uncooled above, cooled below):

OX-4L 1x6	Gigantor XL	K5K 1x3	K90 ML-TRIO
101.601	950.919	359.616	3363.083
184.664	2009.555	593.994	6541.506

Cooling was undertaken by a pair of stock Large Thermal Control radiator panels. Uncooled saw the panels pushing roughly 1000K although there definitely was variance between them. The K90-Trio arrays were always the hottest while the K5Ks were the coolest by a considerable margin. The Gigantor XL array interestingly enough saw an over 100% increase in power generation once they were cooled. So, if you're going to sundive and need a ton of power/keeping your ship from melting, pack some radiator mass. Simple enough. The data for Moho Perihelion is also done, but you guys wont be seeing that until its all done (which may take quite a bit of time).

Edit: God these things take forever to reach equilibrium.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Cyrious

[Urus28]

Not today but this week....

I put a new observation probe around Eve and for the my first time in KSP I put an asteroid in orbit aroud Kerbin (quite easy but fun !).

 

[adsii1970]

1 hour ago, Delay said:

Fixed my plane from yesterday. For some reason it flies perfectly now, and I haven't done anything other than replacing the wings.

And I also tried building a Mk3 airplane that basically looks like a DC-10... except it only has the tail engine. You can probably imagine how that went.

This is one complaint I have in KSP... It isn't as bad as it was in.18, but it still is frustrating. I have a DC10 on KerbalX.

Its hard doing realistic craft and achieve realistic performance...

[Delay]

9 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Its hard doing realistic craft and achieve realistic performance...

Since it only had one engine, the real problem was that the turbine was just underpowered. A 65 t behemoth carried by a single Goliath can't go well.

Similarly I don't think a DC-10 could've reliably flown on its tail engine alone.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Delay

[adsii1970]

1 minute ago, Delay said:

Since it only had one engine, the real problem was that the turbine was just underpowered. A 65 t behemoth carried by a single Goliath can't go well.

Similarly I don't think a DC-10 could've reliably flown on its tail engine alone.

Nope. Wasn't designed to. It was designed to fly on two engines.

[Cyrious]

Huh, might actually have the rest of the data done today. It was only being close to Kerbol that caused the long equilibrium times due to waiting for the heatsoaking to peter out.

[RealKerbal3x]

Some more shenanigans:

I had the idea to make an amphibious rover, so I attached some Puffs to a small rover. It worked, but eventually I got bored and decided to see how fast it would go with the engines on land.

Just before I reached the edge of the island airfield’s runway, Jeb transferred to the rover’s airlock and jumped out. He spaghettified and flew high into the air, high enough to deploy his ‘chute and make a flawless landing on the control tower.

[Cyrious]

Well, I've gotten everything out to Kerbin done, and so far from the data I've got, actively keeping the solar panels cooled doesn't really need to be done until the craft in question has passed through the halfway point between Eve and Moho. By the time you reach Moho though, it is definitely recommended that at least basic cooling is added for ion-driven craft, as the addtional mass of radiators is definitely offset by the addtional power available to run the ion engines and other power hungry items.

Rest of the data to be done tomorrow.