What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Benji13]

5 hours ago, Aragosnat said:

Guess who I spotted:

Damn...

That courage to stupidity ratio is harsh. Still cool  

[Aphobius]

7 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

I have seen a few amazing thing but.....

Does it have a power source or is it just running on the initial swing of the pendulum? Does it eventualy stop or is there some in-game-Brownian motion that makes it perpetual?

Brovo. Two thumbs up.

 

ME

It has a few reaction wheels (the main one where the escapement is and a few smaller ones inside) that act as a spring would in a real clock, you can see me setting the trim (bottom left) at the start of the video, so they spin by themselves.

It starts with the pendulum stopped (centered), the escapement (the thing with one gear and two strange teeth above) counts the oscillations of the pendulum, but also transfer energy from the spring to the pendulum. In Kerbal there is a lot of friction, the pendulum would stop after three swings or so.

[eddiew]

Turning attention back to Sarinator while the Odyssey parks up around Duna to munch through all its gathered data, mission control sends the probe on a series of orbits and flybys.

In tight Sarin orbit, Daphne turns out to be cracked little moon made of blue ice. Mission control makes a note to equip any future expeditions with rubber gloves.

Fosno is less attractive, and mostly used to provide a gravity slingshot, raising the apoapsis so's to reduce the fuel costs of achieving a retrograde orbit to match S/0-S2. This green little moonlet is somewhat reminiscent of Minmus, although it seems more apple-y than minty.

Naturally, the next two explore contracts are for two other moons of Sarin - both of which are in prograde but eccentric orbits   With only 2500m/s left in the tank, it seems very unlikely that Sarinator can explore both of these, although there is a chance that it could manage one or the other, with some careful use of gravity assists to change orbital plane around Sarin.

Meanwhile nearer to the sun, and with a distinctly different colour palette...

A routine mission sends Duna Bug scurrying through an unexpectedly violent sandstorm. Fortunately, the wispy veil that Duna calls and atmosphere doesn't have the gusto to whip up the dust into anything problematic.

With it's experiment data finally crunched, the Odyssey takes its chance to burn for Kerbin at the next return window.

Current available science points; over 30,000. Next choice of mission is still up for debate. Sending a crew to Sarnus is very tempting, but so is science-ing the poop out of some aerospikes and having a shot at Eve...

[JadeOfMaar]

Nothing to show this time. I swept the cobwebs off a big boat I once made with OPT parts, changed the engines and gave it a good deal of aerodynamic adjustment to help its turn rate, acceleration and deceleration, then took it for a final test drive to gauge how far it could go before running empty.

Afterwards I began setting up crafts and recording with OBS to put up a quick video for YouTube but the game lagged just slightly, enough to be a bother in post-production... then my PC flat-out shut off. Antique/deficient hardware. Well I had fun flying something not for testing (during the recording).

Side note: I don't think Daphne would be too happy with the idea of a hoard of strange women with gloves coming after her and her kitchen garden.

Edited September 24, 2016 by JadeOfMaar

[Tw1]

Just some routine maintenance checks. 
 

Nothing exciting, and definitelly not important at all. 

[Martian Emigrant]

14 hours ago, Aragosnat said:

Guess who I spotted:

Felipe?

A friend of yours?

[Ty Tan Tu]

I am still relatively new at this, so getting a usable rover to my Mun station was a big accomplishment for me. I tried an earlier one but it kept flipping over, and was just a rolly-polly toy for Jeb until he broke it. It has to be the ugliest lander I have ever made, but oddly handle very well. Adding the control module to the space crane made getting rid of it very easy, but I am starting to have a bunch of debris scattered over the surface of Mun.

 

I am afraid to go above about 10 m/s with it, but did take it for a 2 km tour up to the brink of a crater - then I chicken out and returned to the Mun station.

[Guest]

I've been progressing in my 1.2-pre career. I wanted to get to spaceplanes as soon as feasible, and am now at the point where I have some useful ones. I just sent up a Mun station supply probe with a cargo plane, refueled it from a tanker plane, and will send it on its way soon. I also launched a light Duna probe from a spaceplane.

I somehow find this much more civilised than rockets. My goal is not to unlock any more heavy rocketry nodes -- I have Skipper but not Twin-Boar -- and do all my heavy lifting with spaceplanes instead.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Made a 1536 passenger capacity plane fly out of sheer will.

And then crashed it due to bugs which prevented me from re-opening my gear bays.

Spoiler

 

[eddiew]

Finally did the big momma  

It took some persuading to get mission control to release funds for this one, but some bright spark suggested that Eve might be a new and fertile source of blueberry pie, which clinched it.

There's something... exceedingly eerie about being in orbit of Eve. Perhaps it's because you know that only 10km below your feet is the most ferocious atmosphere in the system. Maybe it's because you know that Eve is pulling on you hard enough to shrink your spine by two inches - if you weren't in orbital freefall. Whatever the case, the atmosphere here is a little creepy, and the crew resolve to be done as quickly as possible.

Descent was a little scary. Sylveon's CoM is a bit too high behind the shield and she tends to tip slightly off-retrograde. Fortunately that shield is so darn huge it keeps the airbrakes in the slipstream anyway and nothing burnt off. There's a nasty spin kicks in about 25km, which seems to be the SAS overusing the fins and getting locked into a feedback loop - but it settles once the parachutes are deployed. Final touchdown is about 1800m altitude in a highlands biome that wasn't quite as high as mission planning had hoped.

With a final impact speed of 6.3m/s, it's a relatively lazy touchdown, and Lyssa becomes the first kerbal to set toe upon the purple sands of Eve. For once, even her fearless grin fades into a thin lipped expression of one who understands just how demanding this planet is on travellers.

What Lyssa did not realise from the simulations was that taking off from Eve feels like you're doing everything at 3x timewarp. The thick atmosphere yanks you around with the slightest whiff of control authority, while the heavy gravity tears through your first two stages much quicker than you expect. In the end, Sylveon could probably have reached orbit with more fuel remaining, but these are lessons that are learned by doing. In the end, the mothership only makes two orbits between decoupling, and Lyssa returning to space - an efficient snatch and grab that didn't leave any time for the krakens of Eve to strike.

(Ed: And not a single science point has been KR&D'd into either the vector or the aerospike engines on that lander   The tanks hold about 5% more fuel, and the pod is about 20% lighter, but that's pretty much as far as the cheating goes. TWR was always over 1.2, and it reached orbit with 1km/s spare, so I suspect it would have flown with pure stock.

Future missions, yes absolutely I will be improving the atmospheric ISP of those engines, and probably their thrust. I don't fancy trying to land a fancy rover with current equipment. Lander design heavily inspired by things in the Eve Ascent Challenge thread. Because geebus hell it's hard to get your head around Eve without some guidance to get you going! That planet just mocks you for anything you do even slightly wrong...)

Also, some outtakes from early design simulations... The problem with Eve is that you don't really have enough margin for error to do things fancy :<

Edited September 24, 2016 by eddiew

[moogoob]

I'm bored, so I launched an orange tank into LKO using nothing but Thuds. Well, there are two Twitches on the tank itself, but those are only for the last 65 or so m/s. There's 30 Thuds on the first stage and six under the fairing below the second stage.

Edited September 24, 2016 by moogoob
Adding more images

[SSgt Baloo]

I was inspired by the plane in this video to make the plane visible in the images below.
 

I give you the Chickenwing!

The Aerosport engine (~25 kn thrust) is from the KAX mod. I used a couple of RCS thrusters for the eyes, and only noticed the convenient "eyebrows" after I'd placed them. This actually flies extremely well. It isn't exactly an STOL, but it can land in a short distance, when you use the flaps. The flaps make too much drag on take-off, so I only use them for landing. I tried using them for take-off, but they made so much drag it took forever to get off the ground. Not the whole runway, but most of it.

More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/Chickenwing

 

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

39 minutes ago, SSgt Baloo said:

I was inspired by the plane in this video to make the plane visible in the images below.
 

I give you the Chickenwing!

The Aerosport engine (~25 kn thrust) is from the KAX mod. I used a couple of RCS thrusters for the eyes, and only noticed the convenient "eyebrows" after I'd placed them. This actually flies extremely well. It isn't exactly an STOL, but it can land in a short distance, when you use the flaps. The flaps make too much drag on take-off, so I only use them for landing. I tried using them for take-off, but they made so much drag it took forever to get off the ground. Not the whole runway, but most of it.

More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/Chickenwing

 

 

El Pollo Loco. 

Buh. Gok. 

 

Also: kewl, new forum smileys!

[Araym]

Messing with Kronal Vessel Viewer and my latest Shuttle replica...

... I guess if I can add a quarter cargo bay after the cockpit to make it more in proportion with the fuel tanks...

[Martian Emigrant]

What a day. What a day.

Played hooky and played KSP...Again...I need help.

Anyway. Today I partook in the "Monoprop to anywhere" challenge and made first place (For now). Imagine that. Me. First place. That never happends. Won't last.

But I would like to report that I have been experimenting on something that as been puzzling me for a long time.

- Can two different size dockport dock?

Well the answer is......No.

They can't.

Not on their own.

http://imgur.com/a/ynec3

I placed a Clamp-O-Tron Docking Port Jr. Inside a Clamp-O-Tron Docking Port with the Jr just proud of the other one using Toggle Snap (You know that hexagon button thing)

Placed it on a docking capable ship and went out to play.

The Bi-Dockport works on both kind and on itself.

-It docks on the Junior through the Junior. They touch first so they mate first.

-It docks on the Bigger Camp-O-Tron through the same. The Junior fits nicely inside the hollow.

-It docks on the Bi one through the the outer one. Again the Jr fits nicely in there.

 

ME

EDIT and PS

It will be my standard from now on. It's only one more part.....Right?

How does one make a part anyway? So it becomes only one part?

 

 

Edited September 25, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[DBowman]

1 hour ago, Martian Emigrant said:

How does one make a part anyway? So it becomes only one part?

Maybe just making it an assembly would be okay for you? You can use module manager to use multiple 'models' and add 'modules of behavior' to a clone of an existing part. The jr docking port .cfg (GameData/Squad/Parts/Utility/DockingPortJr) has

    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleDockingNode
        referenceAttachNode = top
        nodeType = size0
        stagingEnabled = False
    }
 in it - Snr is the same but size2 - you could try using MM to clone snr, add an extra jr module like above (hoping the size0 tells the docking code what kind of thing it's compatible with), and add an extra 'model' so it draws both kinds.

Edited September 25, 2016 by DBowman

[Grenartia]

So, I actually built my first truly stock SSTO today, and got it to orbit on the first try. 

[Magzimum]

Built a new tanker-rover for my Minmus base. My existing rovers did not have enough liquid-fuel capacity. Launching, as always with these aerodynamic wonders, was straight up until 25-30 km after which I went towards the horizon. 

Macpond Kerman was terribly excited.

Here it's docked to the mining base. I may have to expand that too, at some point. This has only 6 drills.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Magzimum
typos

[eddiew]

Returned the crew of the Sylveon back home. Along with the Odyssey's crew, since they'd finally finished processing the data they brought back from Ike.

(I find the green flash at sunset on Eve rather cool, because it's an occasional phenomenon on Earth too, and suggests that somewhere along the lines, SVE/Scatterer is being very clever )

The Investigator MPV Edition is yet again employed to collect everyone from LKO, piloted by Jay Kerman, who insists on bugging Lyssa every time she gets home. Its tanks prove capacious enough to top up the Sylveon transfer ship (new name pending) completely, so it remains docked to Starcrossed and available as a heavy-duty tug in future.

The Odyssey was visited by a Thomas II tanker while the Sylveon returned from Eve, and so only needed a few extra units to top her off fully, but since the Investigator has fuel to spare, the Yumi dropship is also given a refuel. The pair can remain in orbit until an appropriate mission arises, or perhaps Sylveon will take over the job of transporting Yuki while the Odyssey can carry a heavier lander. Either way, point is never to waste a good asset once it's in orbit, and mission control now has three up there.

Following the return to ground, the engineering team were strictly reprimanded about their choice of docking ports. It turns out that off-axis junior ports have basically no structural rigidity at all, causing the Sylveon's lander pod to swing and sway wildly in the cargo bay whenever the Investigator made in-atmosphere manoeuvres. This dangerous circumstance was unfortunately captured by journalists' cameras and is now an indelible part of public record. The PR department is trying to convince them that this was an experimental male mail plane...

Fortunately, the Investigator's glide speed is only 50m/s and only the terrier engine was lost when it inevitably collided with the runway, although once again this plane landed so short that it only recovered for 98% value. Pilots are henceforth instructed to taxi further than they actually need to.

Future retrievals that absolutely must have only a junior docking port will be arranged to allow decoupling of everything except the command pod, and the port will be fitted on-axis at the front of the cargo bay.

30 science points gained for returning the capsule from Eve, five of nine kerbals promoted to 5-star rank after their return from Ike. The kerbonaut complex is getting a little crowded with colonels...

Finally, spent ~8,000 science to unlock the rest of the Near Future tech tree nodes, leaving only the Alcubierre Warp Drive remaining. Which now costs 100,000 because I love a challenge. This has left ~25,000 to either save for the final unlock, or to allocate with KR&D. As yet, mission control isn't sure which way to go. Investment in vectors and aerospikes could produce a cheaper, more practical Eve lander with space for multiple kerbals and deployable surface science experiments, which would likely yield several thousand data per mission - but would it really pay back the investment, or is it more efficient to knuckle down with the technology available and hammer out missions to the Joolian and Sarnusian moons?

Edited September 25, 2016 by eddiew

[eddiew]

8 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

How does one make a part anyway? So it becomes only one part?

I usually use the welding mod to combine multiple parts - although it does say that "it is better not to combine together several Docking ports in one weldment."  Not sure whether that means it doesn't work, or whether the game can't tell which one you want to target and therefore your manoeuvring will have to be purely by-eye.

I like your idea though, I'd wondered if that would work but never had the guts to test it   Might see whether I can get the senior to play ball... would be really useful to have a 1.25/2.5m universal port.

[purpleivan]

I completed my 2nd entry to the The Incredible Double Mun Double Kerbin Landing Challenge with Jeb going on a solo mission from Kerbin, to the Mun surface, back to the Kerbin surface, back to the Mun again and finally returning home to Kerbin, from a single launch weighing 222 tons. That's heavy compared with the other entries, but this one was "all rocket, all the time".

 

 

[Van Disaster]

More runs at Pine's Charter Challenge;

This time up to the rather small top of a mountain to change crew of a radio station. Up there, just slightly left of centre. Fun place to land an actual aircraft...

 

[kotomikun]

Trying out some Career in 1.2, sent some rich idiots generous civilians up to LKO in the Tourist Trap V-II...

 

...but, with quite a bit of fuel left after reaching orbit, Jeb decided to fly his not-magic capitalism bus to everyone's favorite frozen wasteland.

 

Somehow, there was enough fuel left over from this little stunt to fly Jeb and his unwitting passengers back to Kerbin.

 

Their entry was too shallow, though, and after a few passes, the ablator started to run out. Jeb, more due to impatience than actually paying attention to his resource gauges, engaged the emergency airbrakes.

 

The passengers remained blissfully unconcerned as their cabins skirted the limits of their heat tolerances.

 

Fortunately, and inexplicably, the entire ship survived its sideways plasma dive, and they all coasted down for a safe landing in a flat and uninteresting desert.

 

These tourists now have more training than most of our astronauts...

[Martian Emigrant]

3 hours ago, eddiew said:

I usually use the welding mod to combine multiple parts - although it does say that "it is better not to combine together several Docking ports in one weldment."  Not sure whether that means it doesn't work, or whether the game can't tell which one you want to target and therefore your manoeuvring will have to be purely by-eye.

I like your idea though, I'd wondered if that would work but never had the guts to test it   Might see whether I can get the senior to play ball... would be really useful to have a 1.25/2.5m universal port.

I think you might be right about "Which ring to use". Though the clamp-O-Tron (Plural) didn't seem to care which was "Control from here" and who was "Target". First to make contact seems to be "It". Like floating next to a station and making an "Accidental" dock due to the magnets.

I went looking at UbioWeld last night. It is updated to work with V1.1.2. I am currently running Pre V1.2 for play and with my "Real" career still safe within 1.1.3. Not really that keen to install 1.1.2 just to save a part right now....Not saying no for the future though,

I think I will experiment some more with docking ports. Make them flush as oppose to proud. Make a 3way-sexy port. I have built with the Senior never actually tried to dock with it.

I will report.

BTW I have had fuel tank in cargo hulls dangle out the bottoms of SSTOs They need to be attached with Space-Bailling-Wire (Struts) before leaving the SPH. Not sure what can be done about retrivals.....Yet.

 

ME

[eddiew]

1 hour ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Not really that keen to install 1.1.2 just to save a part right now....Not saying no for the future though,

It's fine for 1.1.3 as well   Most mods are I think, it tends to only be major versions that upset them ^^

Triple port will be hard, what with the senior being flatter than the others :/  If only they were more concave as the radius increases...