What did you do in KSP1 today?

[slubman]

When doing interplanetary travels, I don’t want my kerbal to be stranded in some small capsule for months/years.

So I started working on an interplanetary vessel with lot of room.

There is 16 Hitchiker (so 64 kerbals), a science lab and a cupola.

Costing 3.4M$, in the career, this vessel is not close to be launched.

The tests are done in a sandbox save.

 

A test launch video is available there: http://plays.tv/video/5840abf1594ab033d4/playing-around-some-design-for-interplanetary-vessels 

 

I will continue to work on this design. I plan to add at least an ISRU.

[capi3101]

12 hours ago, kraden said:

@capi3101 oh, I've read plenty of guides. One key thing that drives me nuts is that the wings in KSP are symmetrical but are assumed to have lift without any angle of attack. This makes a proper empennage difficult to create as their airfoils are typically upside-down so they function as counter lift.  This makes it easier to use the CoM as a fulcrum and the aircraft more stable when the CoM moves due to weight loss (fuel or payload). Also, wing angle can be tweaked for stabilization but I can't seem to get it to work in KSP. I suspect the culprit behind both issues is that KSP probably uses overall aircraft lift for it's physics as opposed to individual lift surfaces. -rant over-

Some parting words from one of my instructors: "just because it's not airworthy doesn't mean it can't fly".

I'm pretty sure the stock game does use overall lift for its physics, and I agree that it's not the best way of doing it.

Sounds like you're a serious (actual?) plane flier...so if you're not adverse to mods, I'd strongly suggest adding FAR - it lets planes behave like planes should, and the stability analyses it provides are absolute godsends. More importantly, it lets a wing control surface act in the way it should, regardless of whether it's oriented in the direction the stock game says it will generate lift or not. The whole reason why I haven't switched to 1.2 yet is because stock atmo has always had a degree of non-intuitive dumbness to it (it's better than it used to be but still could be better) and FAR hasn't been updated for 1.2 yet...

I'd also suggest a fly-by-wire mod such as Atmosphere Autopilot so that you're not trying to use stock SAS controls while you fly. SAS is really meant for rockets; it's pretty lousy when it comes to planes. You'd be amazed at how well something not really airworthy can fly if it's got a fly-by-wire controlling it...then again, maybe not; the F-117 comes to mind.

 

 

(1.1.3, FAR to go) Yesterday began with the transfer burn of Big Stink to Mün, with Val at the helm along with Bill and tourists Gragy and Jesthis in the cans. I went ahead and checked the Spamcan 7a lander parked at Munport to make sure I had refueled it for their use when they arrived; the lander was ready to go. While they were en route I went over to the Minmusport space station, where Next Objective was parked. I had received a contract to conduct a rescue in orbit of Minmus and Next Objective was available, so I had Buremy pile out of the cockpit so there was a seat available and sent the eight tourists aboard Next Objective on the mission. The rescue craft was very low around Minmus, with a periapsis of just six kilometers, but I was able to affect a successful rescue and return Next Objective to Minmusport. Pilot Carta Kerman has joined my ranks and will be returned to Kerbin on the next available ferry. While I was still killing time, I returned the booster stage of the Hellhound 7 rover from Mün to Kerbin (unsuccessfully as it turned out, which was not really a surprise) and I established the Hojo Charlie outpost on the surface of Mün in the Midlands just northeast of the East Crater, about 65 kilometers east-northeast of the Piper Alpha 7 refinery site.

Big Stink then arrived at Mün and a rendezvous and docking at Munport was affected. Since Bill had business on the surface, I decided to wait until early morning at the Piper Alpha site so there would be daylight, then drove the Hellhound 7 rover to the flat area I had discovered while driving the previous day about six kilometers north of the site. The passengers and crew of Big Stink were loaded into the Spamcan and sent down to land in the vicinity of the rover, which was successful. Bill hopped out and performed a KAS refit on the Hellhound, adding a surface scanner, a KAS connector port and replacing a strut that had blown off during the previous day's nighttime rove. He then hopped into the newly refitted rover and began taking surface ore readings on his way to the Wildcat 7 drilling outpost (parked 700 meters from Piper Alpha). I discovered something pretty quickly - I had parked Piper Alpha on the wrong side of the East Crater and while the site was getting decent ore where it was, there were areas in the vicinity far better. Upon arriving at Wildcat, Bill handed off his tools to engineer Corbas and Corbas refitted the Hellhound with one of the outpost's radial ore tanks. Bill then re-boarded the rover and headed back to where the Spamcan was located, and the lander returned to Munport. Those two tourists definitely got their money's worth, though in retrospect the whole point of bringing Val along was so that she could plant a flag on Mün - and I forgot to do that...

Most of the rest of the day was spent roving to find a better spot to move Piper Alpha to. Wound up hitting the ground hard enough at one point to blow off the underside plate - unfortunately, that's where I had mounted the ore tank. There was nothing I could do as I watched the plate and the tank slide away from the rover. Luckily the RTGs immediately above the plate were spared damage; losing those wouldn't have crippled the rover beyond usability since there are two more in the back, but it would have made me have to start managing the rover's power consumption and ultimately would've reduced its top speed, which is frustrating (I know since it's happened before a long time ago). Anyway, after roving about 80 kilometers across Mün - almost to the place where Bob had planted the flag for the East Crater - I found a spot with an ore concentration above ten percent - twice that at Piper Alpha's site - and decided to try to move the refinery (I have a screenie of this attempt but imgur is being persnickety this morning). I overshot the rover's position by about eight kilometers, but the nice thing about moving a refinery is that you can always refuel for more attempts if you need to (something I may or may not do later today - I need to double-check where the refinery is now in relation to the good ore area, and it's possible that the ore concentration may be even higher than where the rover is parked). I also need to decide what to do with Wildcat 7. Since I took off one of the ore tanks, the outpost is no longer symmetrical - I'd have to remove the opposite ore tank from the outpost to re-balance it. Even then, I don't recall if the outpost has sufficient fuel to be moved. If not, I'm probably looking at another long rove to go pick up Valcy and Corbas and bring them to Piper Alpha (there's room) and abandoning the outpost entirely.

Ended the day by putting the Bleepity-Bleep 7c probe into its final position around Minmus. Promptly got a contract to move it again...I've only been trying to get this probe into its current position for the last six game days......

 

Edited December 2, 2016 by capi3101

[RoboRay]

My rescaled 6.4x solar system career is progressing nicely.  LKO-testing of my Apolloish system indicates I'm ready to try for the Mun...

 

 

Edited December 2, 2016 by RoboRay

[XB-70A]

I'm deeply sorry for the double post. I didn't know what happens while trying to edit the post under Safari the computer literally freeze for five minutes then every times I tried to edit it creates a new post (?!)

Edited December 2, 2016 by XB-70A
Bug?

[XB-70A]

 

I nearly never warp my career, so the technical tree is fully available without having land outside of the Kerbin sphere of influence. Another probe-relay is waiting in KLO for the transfert window to Duna opening in 270 days while a rover is close behind, intended to explore a bit Eve and which will be transferred in 310 days.

So to keep some activity I keep on building some tiny shuttle. One X-38-like is perfectly operational for 400x400 orbit, another bigger sister with 6 seats and called the Doom Chaser nearly achieved to be in the same case.

The last one is the X-26 Esos.

I know the mono prop tank to simulate the OMS absolutely s**ks, but my computer is an office laptop. Everything over 150 parts can kill it 

Also those are really early screenshots. The OME are now visible and made of two Spark.

 

The Jumbo-64 orange tank was too thin and heavy (such a paradox ). So four FL-T800 are contained in the air stream part. Three Thud play the S.S.M.E role.

 

The main problem are the Thumper (like always). They are underpowered and more important swallow their fuel too fast. I will try to put 3 S.R.B and offset them in a single place on each side. It should kick the orbiter high enough before the separation.

I tried the Kickback too but they are way too tall for such a small design.

Edited December 2, 2016 by XB-70A
Can't edit my post normally with safari.

[Allocthonous]

I sent a 3-man mission to Dres and returned safely. I cut it awfully fine, too; about 500m/s of delta v left in the tanks when I ditched the engines for reentry. My transfer profile probably wasn't the most efficient, but I think the next rocket I send needs to have closer to 15000m/s left when I hit orbit, as opposed to the ~9k I used this time. I'd like to have plenty of wiggle room to mess around visiting dresteroids for samples.

[dangerhamster]

The Mun Gryfon reached the Polar region. after picking up a couple of sets of data they pondered the next move. The idea of reaching geographical most northernist vied with the gnarly terrain ahead and tales of craft eating beasties. And lost. Instead they turned west along the Highlands skirting the Polar Crater with vague ideas of looping back to base.

In a bid to reassert control KSC sent them co-ordinates of a crater they liked the look of 100 km to their SW. Picking their way through some large lumpy bits they descended to more agreeable terrain and are now a mere 45km from their objective.

The only event of any note was the discovery of what can only be a sign of recent glaciation.

Unless magic balancing boulders are a thing. Opinion is divided......

[DocMoriarty]

Like 2 (Kerbin) years ago my first mission to Moho ran out of fuel while trying to brake and get into an orbit around Moho. The poor guys overshot and ended up in a fairly excentric orbit between Moho and Eve with all tanks dry as a desert in summer. And Jeb and Bob were on board as well.

So HQ at KSC decided to launch a rescue mission to pick these guys up from their orbit and finally bring them to Moho. The mission was basically a chain of large fuel modules and a strong tug (actually 2 tugs, a small one at the rear end too) to push that stuff to Moho. After fueling up in orbit around Minmus the 'train' finally took off to the lost expedition ship.

Whenever a tank module was empty, it got removed from the 'train' to save on weight and fuel. Finally today the rescue mission reached the lost adventurers in their orbit around the sun. Only 2 tank modules are left but everyone including Jeb is positive, that this will suffice to finally get to Moho. Here is an image of the final rescue mission short before docking to the lost Moho expedition, just after removing one last tank module.

The rescue mission got docked to the moho expedition ship.

To save more weight, the old tug of the expedition part got removed too (red circle).

So in a few days or so and after a few correction burns the expedition will finally arrive at Moho.

Though also another expedition met a huge milestone today. My Eve expedition finally reached Eve and could successfully get into an orbit around Eve. Right now they are working their way to Gilly to set up a refueling camp with the resource gatherer and tanker before moving onto the final orbit around Eve. Gives me some more time not to tell them that the ones landing on Eve won't return. At least not for maaany years.
 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2016 by DocMoriarty

[tpa_545]

I recruited a kerbal named "spaghetti kerman"... xD

 

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, RoboRay said:

My rescaled 6.4x solar system career is progressing nicely.  LKO-testing of my Apolloish system indicates I'm ready to try for the Mun...

 

 

 

Wedge tank mod name plz 

[RoboRay]

22 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Wedge tank mod name plz 

Those are pretty neat, aren't they?  There's four different lengths for wrapping around a 1.25m part to get a combined width of 2.5m, and they include built-in radial decouplers.

The "Wrapper" droptanks are kind of hidden away in this multi-mod thread, so I don't think a lot of people know about them:

I got the Ven's-style tank textures for Procedural Parts from the same thread.

Edited December 2, 2016 by RoboRay

[kraden]

@capi3101 I'll have to check out that autopilot. I had downloaded FAR before but didn't get to use it as steam then updated KSP to 1.2 before I was ready . I'll definately keep my eyes peeled for an update there. It sounds like that might really be what I need.

Any tips for reentry would be welcome. IIRC I often end up in a tumble 

I'm not a pilot myself, but I had stared college in pursuit of becoming an A&P (aircraft) mechanic. It was fun but the job itself wouldn't have been the right fit for me.

[capi3101]

22 minutes ago, kraden said:

Any tips for reentry would be welcome. IIRC I often end up in a tumble 

As far as avoiding tumbling is concerned, FAR will help you there, as will Atmosphere Autopilot. So will a large vertical stabilizer. So will draining all the fuel out of your craft in the SPH as a pre-flight test; you can see where your CoM is going to wind up in relation to the CoL when the tanks are empty. It's a simple thing but it kills a lot of ersatz spaceplanes...

Don't want to drain your tanks? There's an app a mod for that - RCS Build Aid, which has a "dry center of mass" marker that does the same thing. It's also occasionally useful for checking the balance of RCS thrusters on your rockets. I use a number of other mods for aerospaceplane flight; it'd take me a while to go through them and I'm finding myself in a position where I need to go rushing off at the moment.

Other than that I don't have much to offer for re-entry besides A) use airbrakes in your designs (one per engine is my general rule but it's really more a factor of how heavy your plane is) and engage them the moment you hit atmo, and don't let off until you're down to a reasonable flight speed/altitude, and B) keep your nose up as you're coming in - forty degrees above the horizon is generally good; expect to cook if you can't do much more than ten degrees above the horizon. Use RCS if you have to though don't expect miracles. Drop the nose at the same time you let off the brakes.

[NSEP]

I made a (nearly) envirommentaly friendly rocket in RO.

I apologize for the terrible "screenshot"

Edited December 2, 2016 by NSEP

[Colonel Cbplayer]

Gun missiles

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

14 minutes ago, NSEP said:

I made a (nearly) envirommentaly friendly rocket in RO.

I apologize for the terrible "screenshot"

If you don;t know already, screenshots are F1.

[Aragosnat]

Rover flipped over due to crack in runway: 

[RoboRay]

11 hours ago, RoboRay said:

My rescaled 6.4x solar system career is progressing nicely.  LKO-testing of my Apolloish system indicates I'm ready to try for the Mun...

And we're on the way!

 TMI (Trans-Munar Injection) and TDE (Transposition, Docking and Extraction) are complete.

[Triop]

Check out my new landing gear...

[RoboRay]

16 hours ago, RoboRay said:

And we're on the way!

Good capture into a 50 km near-equatorial orbit.  Now to spend a couple of days screwing around surveying the surface before the landing attempt.

The mission has good comms even over Farside, as I previously sent four comsats to the Mun on a Soyesque launcher.

Edited December 3, 2016 by RoboRay

[loch.ness]

I'd been thinking about installing M.O.L.E for a while and then realized that I had no reason not to.  It integrates well with USI-LS (My prefered LS mod) and fits niches I wanted fit.

 

as a result I started redesigning my ISS to use MOLE parts.  I used the cheat menu to place a constructed model in orbit and phantom forces all but ripped it apart (making it almost impossible to dock with).  I put a new model up with struts using the same method and decided to leave it there for now.  I can build it piece by piece - and I likely will in the future - but I was having enough trouble that I decided to leave it for now since I wanted to work on other projects.  This came after a frustrating night of trying to dock truss sections and segments of the old layout which would catch magnets and spin so strongly as to nearly throw the truss section off into space (or having the radiators somehow blocking the docking port despite no physical collision, or any number of issues like that.

I will likely end of using KAS and KISS when its time to build the thing again since I mostly enjoy that, but I'll need to get better at piloting my Space shuttle and I'll need a different design path for that.

 

Instead here's what I did:

My revised Soyuz is en-route to the ISS with a crew of 2 (It can deliver 6 and return 4 but I forgot to set the crew).  It uses a porkjet habitation orbital orb for the orbital module, M.O.L.E. parts for the capsule and solar systems.  The KOSMOs team was able to orbit, manuver, and dock with half or more of its fuel left.  

It will stay docked to the ISS as an escape vehicle (to be joined by another Soyuz eventually).  Without any supply missions the ISS can support a crew of ~ 8 for a full year in terms of both habitation and supplies, these two have about a year before their homesickness compels them to come back but they'll likely return earlier as they are just the shakedown crew.

I had stepped outside of my original plans for getting back into the game to do space station stuffs and I had a burning desire to get back to what I had been doing before.  While I haven't gone back to make a Titan using M.O.L.E. parts (Because I'm not currently messing about with different sized docking ports for KOSMO (My soviet themed program flights) and KASE  (my american themed program flights) missions.  I have a good Soyuz rocket for orbital missions that is ideal for crew deployments to the ISS.  I have an excellent shuttle (copied from the forums) for other missions which I need to learn to dock.  I needed to rebuild a working Saturn V.  It was a night launch so no pictures of the launch but the overall rocket isn't much different from my older ones.

The CSM and LEM are changed a bit though.  The CSM now uses a Titan sized fuel tank with the fuel cells, RCS pods, batteries, and Life Support containers attacked to it.  The RCS is offset and strutted to that tank so that it appears attached to the faring.  The engine is a Titan engine which is between the Skipper and the 909 in thrust and ISP while looking the part well.  The CSM had enough fuel to circularize at Mun with the LEM attached (~150,000m), lower the orbit to ~30,000m and circularize.  Rendevous with the LEM ascent module at a 10,000x10,000m orbit and correct for incination.  Dock, and burn for home without running out of fuel (well, I haven't gotten it home yet but it still has 1/5 a tank of gas and most of its RCS, its will make it home easily).  The CSM has enough LS for a 12 day mission with a crew of 3 and the crew has enough habitation for ~ 20 days allowing enough rationing.  I'm pretty happy with the CSM overall.

The LEM is where I need to do some more tinkering.  I like using the Titan adapter on top of the lander can to give it a look somewhat closer to the original while still feeling kerbal and it gives me places to surface attach stuff to make it more LEM feeling.  The bottom part has far more fuel than it needs - I landed from 30,000 feet with no specific target (but a near perfect burn as I nearly thought I had waited too long and would crash but came to 10 m/s about 50 meters off the ground) with half my fuel left.  I can certainly afford to lighten the decent stage in future iterations.

The ascent stage however has just enough fuel to get to a 10x10 orbit with RCS helping out (It still had more than half its mono prop though).  My CSM can come pick it up so that's not a big problem but it feels like too narrow a margin.  I'll be looking to lighten the descent stage and reinforce the ascent stage.  I'd like to be able to get to a 20x20 orbit at least (30x30 would be nice but I don't need it - my current descent stage could handle descent from a much higher orbit allowing my CSM lots of maneuvering to reach it as it wouldn't be tugging a lander with it.

Edited December 3, 2016 by loch.ness
Corrected remaining fuel in CSM

[XB-70A]

The Eos is flying!

 

With 6 Thumper she now get enough punch to reach 700 m/s before the SRB separation.

We can get rid of them around 10 000 m. But with their ridiculous prices I've chosen to not recover them.

 

 

For some reasons I can't explain now the whole shuttle is absolutely uncontrolable during the SRB use. It keep on rolling on its longitudinal axis.

Edited December 3, 2016 by XB-70A

[Mjp1050]

Did you know that fairings work really, really well as pontoons?

I didn't either! This thing is 66 tons and is supported by 4 fairings!

This opens up so many possibilities for seaplanes and boats!

[Angelo Kerman]

I started working on a new part for the Heisenberg:

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 hours ago, RoboRay said:

Those are pretty neat, aren't they?  There's four different lengths for wrapping around a 1.25m part to get a combined width of 2.5m, and they include built-in radial decouplers.

The "Wrapper" droptanks are kind of hidden away in this multi-mod thread, so I don't think a lot of people know about them:

I got the Ven's-style tank textures for Procedural Parts from the same thread.

Cool, thanx!  I knew I remembered them from somewhere but I couldn't think of where.