What did you do in KSP1 today?

[ThatHomelessGuy]

56 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

 

I'm very inexperienced with Space Planes and thus have not figured out how to de-orbit them over KSC yet. 

I'm experienced with Space Planes and still have not figured out how to de-orbit them over KSC yet. 

Though I have a good idea on how. Depending on the lift of the space plane I aim for a standard 35km periapsis in the region above the KSC it's actually not as complicated as it seems. You learn the deorbit lift of each plane as you test them but I find putting the periapsis over the KSC to start helps to gauge your tweaks to the decent profile. (Periapsis infront or behind the KSC) If you have decent lift you can aim over KSC and make up the distance it moves as kerbin rotates past it and even way overshoot it if you end up "bouncing" down through the atmosphere. I once had a MASSIVE deltawing SSTO shuttle that took near half an orbit to fully sink into the atmo proper because if I pulled back too hard and gained enough drag I'd rip the wings off or burn them up but aiming too steep into it would cause it to fall into a violent burning tumble. The solution was to aim just above the horizon and as a result once the atmosphere started to bite at those speeds I would start to go back up until more speed had been bled off. Hence I call it bouncing. A small craft like that would do well with a periapsis over the KSC at 30-35km.


Maybe.... This IS KSP after all.

[Benji13]

Released my first mod. Nothing too amazing but I reckon it's not bad for a first time. Link below if anyone is interested.

 

Edited October 26, 2016 by Benji13

[Araym]

9 hours ago, Leafbaron said:

I'm very inexperienced with Space Planes and thus have not figured out how to de-orbit them over KSC yet. 

 

... It heavily depends on your (space)plane gliding capability:

- with my "brick heavy" shuttle (a couple of post above there are some images of it), I retro-burn little less half orbit away from KSC (basically, on the other side of Kerbin) to put a 15km periapsis deep in atmosphere in front of the space center, on the sea west of it (halfway to the peninsula that close the "indian ocean-alike" in front of).
Kerbin's Rotation will put a bit further KSC.
Then I start to glide, changing my angle of attack to "compensate" were the PE mark will stay, once I bite the air: the glide it's a "bounce on the atmosphere" one. First leg on the atmosphere, it goes down, starting bleeding speed but then reaching lift with it, altitude again: this "upgoing phase" is the one I use to "tune" the landing.
With Angle of Attack between 5° to 15°, generally I can keep the speed and extend a bit, if needed... AoA at 20° generally keep it a stable and slowly bleed speed... AoA above 30° is pure "atmosphere breaking position", to shorten my glide and burn velocity...
... this procedure all to have the PE mark hitting 5000m a bit in front of KSC (to compensate Kerbin rotation in the last leg), around the small airfield's island in front of it.
It's generally enough to have the final descent leg based only on visual: if I pass the "OhNoehTooShort!" mountains eastward of KSC without crashing on it, I can make a perfect land on the runaway. If I screwed, I pitch down hard to land in a suitable place rather than mountains/highlands

... then... it only means of "tuning" the initial burn a bit, once you get the basics on your plane (it's way smaller, a "double edge sword" on reentry: "lighter" = it could probably glide better; "with more lift" = it could probably glide better; "it is lighter and with more lift" = it could generate too much lifting drag and bleed speed too fast and make shorter atmosphere legs, when the above are combined, at lesser AoA.......) but it is not an impossible task. In any case, try to be "consistent" on your runs: try to burn at the same orbit altitude... try to retroburn the exactly same amount of Dv - m/s every time, to have only to change the moment you burn will start, to compensate where you land...

... mark your own "deorbit procedure lists", to be almost the same each time, to make it perfect
And make "deorbit procedure losts" on every spaceplane: every different design will return from orbit differently (even if with some basics being the same)

Edited October 26, 2016 by Araym

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, 2 crits to go). Played in my laptop career save for about an hour last night. Didn't accomplish much - tried to design a new airplane, the Bad Idea 4, and once again lamented the fact that I didn't have access to Procedural Wings. Re-checking my mod list this morning, it might be because for some unknown reason I don't have that particular mod installed. So there is that...

Plane flew like it was a brick being passed. (As in 'going out of the large intestine' - the forum admins won't let you use the word I'd prefer to use...).

So after about half an hour of getting nowhere there, I decided to switch to a rescue missions, which seems to be about all I've done with this particular career save. Another successful run of the Gurney 7, and the replacement contract is...another effin' rescue mission. <facepalm_hard_enough_to_summon_a_Kraken />

Also got the Beep-Beep 7d in a good enough position for the game to award me the contract. That one I was happy about - about √100k for a Beep-Beep mission. Of course, this was the one that was out nearly to the edge of Kerbin's SOI - in fact, I know the probe was on an escape trajectory at least once during its mission.

I need to go back through the contracts I've got going on right now. Installing Procedural Wings might be in order (assuming it works in 1.1.3) so I can get a little better control over the size and shape of some of my parts and apply my go-to FAR formulas once again (the big one I need is the vertical stabilizer - in my experience the stock ones are just too small). Barring that, I should sit down and measure the sizes of the stock wing parts, something I've been meaning to do for a while now. I know I've got a rescue mission over Mün available and that might be fun to do - and a redesign of the Gurney 7 is a bit overdue at this point in this particular career save.

[michal.don]

Preparing for my first Moon landing in RO/RP-0. Flew the CSM to a Lunar orbit. Testing of the LEM is next.

Michal.don

 

[JadeOfMaar]

My first few crafts arose in KSP 1.2 + Galileo's Planet Pack: A prototype M2X science VTOL inspired by someone's Prometheus-like craft on KerbalX but with which I only needed the Crew Report experiment, and 3 scanner probes. My mission was to finalize on the biome map for Kerbin Gael. I have no idea how fuel efficient this is, or isn't, nor what my vertical speed is when trying to land, because I have the displeasure of operating without KER and dropping/slamming the surface at 12m/s. KER's not 1.2-ready yet. On the other hand, I'm taken away by the model changes to some M2X parts and the mission flag's new position in SPH (and on the Mk1 cockpit).

 

[ROXunreal]

Fiddled with aircraft some more. I'm at a point where I have half the 90 science nodes researched and I tried to make a light aircraft that can fly half way across Kerbin and make an off road landing and takeoff, in order to complete ground EVA contracts. This thing barely had fuel for half the way there but I'm still super glad that I managed to fly half a hemisphere away in it AND land on my first try. The stall speed is at about 20-25m/s. I'm very new to planes in KSP, but not to aviation overall, I fly flight sims a lot.

 

Planes are fun. I wish FAR was updated for 1.2.

Edited October 26, 2016 by ROXunreal

[TooManyIdeas]

I launched Jeb into orbit and brought him back. I'm getting into the swing of this game again. Now if only I could figure out how to get a probe in a stable enough polar orbit for resource scanning...

[Leafbaron]

7 minutes ago, ROXunreal said:

Fiddled with aircraft some more. I'm at a point where I have half the 90 science nodes researched and I tried to make a light aircraft that can fly half way across Kerbin and make an off road landing and takeoff, in order to complete ground EVA contracts. This thing barely had fuel for half the way there but I'm still super glad that I managed to fly half a hemisphere away in it AND land on my first try. The stall speed is at about 20-25m/s. I'm very new to planes in KSP, but not to aviation overall, I fly flight sims a lot.

 

Planes are fun. I wish FAR was updated for 1.2.

Very nice looking plane! Very far distance to travel with sucha light craft, well Done!

Wishing for updated mods?

Thats a paddlin

[ThatHomelessGuy]

40 minutes ago, TooManyIdeas said:

I launched Jeb into orbit and brought him back. I'm getting into the swing of this game again. Now if only I could figure out how to get a probe in a stable enough polar orbit for resource scanning...

Rotate the rocket 90degrees in the VAB and fly it the same way you normally would. Once you break atmo and get an apoapse above 100 you have all the hard work done. The rest is down to how much fuel you have left.

[GDJ]

Built a Pioneer / Voyager hybrid with a whack of science experiments, including Biome/terrain/resource scanning. You name it, it does it, it measures it, it sends it back. Hello Science!  


 

[Chiron0224]

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2016 at 10:54 PM, RX2000 said:

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/254841825967272947/8BF60F5A1DED1858F1D4E458ACD93BB95C0F7D99/

OMG finally landed a Kerbal on the Mun!! Good 'ole Bob got 'er done & came back to Kerbin with 366 science!

 

Congrats!  Your first Mun landing is cause for celebration!

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

So I put a lot of effort into making my Concorde replica look nicer today by taking it apart so I could replace its ugly grey fuselage tanks with a nice shiny fairing.

Two problems:

It breaks if you don't use unbreakable joints during physics load,

and this:

[ThatHomelessGuy]

9 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

So I put a lot of effort into making my Concorde replica look nicer today by taking it apart so I could replace its ugly grey fuselage tanks with a nice shiny fairing.

Two problems:

It breaks if you don't use unbreakable joints during physics load,

and this:

1) Needs More struts.
2) Still Needs More struts
3) You need more than that.
4) Still not enough
5) Maybe enough but you can never be too safe.
6) Put the center of lift ever so slightly behind and above the the center of mass. Make sure the markers in the VAB are overlapping.
7) Center of thrust through center of mass as a rule If your engines are off center just tilt them with surface mode on and the rotate tool til they line up. I believe you can get away with putting it between the center of lift and center of mass but that is an unreliable and dangerous craft you don't want to fly either.
8) Better put some more struts on that.
9) All my supersonic planes have stupid amounts of struts linking the wing panels together, you should try that.
10) Did I say more struts yet?
11) ?????????????
12) Struts, I err mean profit.

[CatastrophicFailure]

28 minutes ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

1) Needs More struts.
2) Still Needs More struts
3) You need more than that.
4) Still not enough
5) Maybe enough but you can never be too safe.
6) Put the center of lift ever so slightly behind and above the the center of mass. Make sure the markers in the VAB are overlapping.
7) Center of thrust through center of mass as a rule If your engines are off center just tilt them with surface mode on and the rotate tool til they line up. I believe you can get away with putting it between the center of lift and center of mass but that is an unreliable and dangerous craft you don't want to fly either.
8) Better put some more struts on that.
9) All my supersonic planes have stupid amounts of struts linking the wing panels together, you should try that.
10) Did I say more struts yet?
11) ?????????????
12) Struts, I err mean profit.

Dude... you forgot the struts...

[JadeOfMaar]

Best question ever asked: Can it even lift?

This plane answers it best: It lifts too much!!!

Can we get a screenshot with all the center markers on please?

58 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

 

[RoboRay]

I discovered that the giant inflatable heatshield makes an excellent ballute...

I've got a relatively lightweight folding plane inside and the delivery canister kept tumbling because of the aerodynamic properties of a cylinder.  This fixed it. 

Next up, probe planes to Eve, Duna, Laythe and even the depths of Jool!  I've got a design worked out that can handle them all.  I think.

Edited October 27, 2016 by RoboRay

[CatastrophicFailure]

5 minutes ago, RoboRay said:

I discovered that the giant inflatable heatshield makes an excellent ballute...

I've got a relatively lightweight folding plane inside and the delivery canister kept tumbling because of the aerodynamic properties of a cylinder.  This fixed it. 

Next up, probe planes to Eve, Duna, Laythe and even the depths of Jool!  I've got a design worked out that can handle them all.  I think.

Wait, how do you attach the big heat shield by it's nose and still inflate it?

[ThatHomelessGuy]

3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Wait, how do you attach the big heat shield by it's nose and still inflate it?

Maybe attach it normally then rotate it with the rotate tool after?

[ThatHomelessGuy]

31 minutes ago, RoboRay said:

I discovered that the giant inflatable heatshield makes an excellent ballute...

I've got a relatively lightweight folding plane inside and the delivery canister kept tumbling because of the aerodynamic properties of a cylinder.  This fixed it. 

Next up, probe planes to Eve, Duna, Laythe and even the depths of Jool!  I've got a design worked out that can handle them all.  I think.

I want to see this folding plane.

[GDJ]

2 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

So I put a lot of effort into making my Concorde replica look nicer today by taking it apart so I could replace its ugly grey fuselage tanks with a nice shiny fairing.

You have some issues at hand.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

@ThatHomelessGuy and @JadeOfMaar: Don't worry about my COL and COM, they were (at first appearance) in the correct locations. My plane wasn't flipping nose over tail, but ratherdoing a flatspin, indicating it was unstable in the yaw axis. Sure enough, by tiliting my plane sideways in the SPH, I found that the horizontal COL was pretty much on the nose. Far from ideal. It turned out that a couple of vertical wing pieces near the front, which were acting as structural elements, were what was causing this problem, so I replaced them with non-wing components and it does not have this problem anymore. Pics in the morning... Maybe... I have two exams (math and engineering) I need to study for. 

Edited October 27, 2016 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[CatastrophicFailure]

29 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

have two exams (math and engineering) I need to study fo

Sounds to me like that's exactly what you were doing.  

[flatbear]

contract called for a duna 13 man base on powered wheels. 

Tada! awaiting launch window to duna

Edited December 11, 2016 by flatbear

[ThatHomelessGuy]

13 minutes ago, flatbear said:

contract called for a duna 13 man base on powered wheels. 

Tada! awaiting launch window to duna

When it's more work to put a base on wheels IN a rocket.