What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Halfdan]

just set up my basecamp on duna in a nice ore rich region, now i will start looking for a nice flat spot to set up the colony

[GoSlash27]

Today I learned that incorporating aerobraking in an interplanetary mission is more trouble than it's worth. A tiny error in periapsis at the other end will cost more DV than a vacuum retroburn would've and if you're unlucky, it can destroy an entire mission.

Best,
-Slashy

[Starman4308]

The ion-powered relay had over 10 km/sec in the tanks, enough to burn for almost two hours, and solar panels to give it 70% thrust even when the batteries were wholly depleted.

Where did it go so wrong? Why is the relay flying back off into solar orbit? How can that little rock be so insanely difficult to capture into?

[evuljeenius]

Prepped mothership and lander for mission to Duna (hope I packed enough snacks for Jeb).  Undocked both from Olympus station and docked them together ready to go.  Large picture in spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Edited December 6, 2016 by evuljeenius

[Triop]

Shot down a ACE, loved it

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

STS-5 (A renovations mission of KerbinLab 2 after what happened on Minmus 15. Fixed the main docking port, put a docking port on the opposite side, repositioned all the solar panels, and put on two docking ports on either side of KerbinLab 3. Two more docking ports were to be placed on KerbinLab 3, one for the solar panel truss system and another for... other things. One drifted away and the other exploded. Landing procedures used by STS-4 were used on this mission as well, also resulting with a perfect landing.): Success

Refuel (The STS-5 mission used up most of its fuel just getting to KerbinLab 2. A makeshift refueling mission consisting of a 2.5m monopropellant canister was sent into orbit and docked to the main docking port of KerbinLab 3. It was decided to equip future rendezvous missions with the shuttle with an extra monopropellant can.): Success

C7 2 (One of the reaction wheels were taken off but the mission still resulting in it flipping uncontrollably. The spacecraft was recovered. A booster redesign was in order.): Failure

Duna Orbiter 1 (A mission to further test nuclear propulsion and aerobraking into orbit. A counterpart to Duna Orbiter 2. Still awaiting results as it travels to Duna.): Projected success

Duna Orbiter 2 (A mission to further test nuclear propulsion and using a flyby of a moon to get into orbit of its planet. Will flyby Ike, burn into orbit, and then burn into Duna orbit.): Uncertain

Next planned mission: Ike Spacecraft T1 (A test for the fifth generation spacecraft. Designed to take a crew of 6 to orbit, the Mun, and beyond.)

[Leafbaron]

Just loaded up my KSP and every active vessel was deleted, there goes my SatCom network, guess thats what ill be doing tonight....

its probably my fault, the game said it couldn't load it couldn't load stock ksp parts and I suspect its because i accidently open ksp twice... I don't know it said it couldn't load the thermometers

Edited December 6, 2016 by Leafbaron

[loch.ness]

My KOSMOS team began testing on their N1 rocket.  I did cheat a little in that the lander is on top of the Soyuz rather than below it.  It was a compromise I had to make to maintain the form factor since my Porkjet Orbital Orb forms the orbital module of the Soyuz and it is very much 2.5 sized.  

Stage 1 has a whole lot of power.  Lift off at 75% thrust (can lift at 60% but I find my self adjusting throttle on gravity turn.  75% is my compromise).

Stage 2 is less powerful but enough to get out of atmo.  First attempt I bungled my G-turn and wound up way to high and steep and couldn't finish the mission (needed Stage 4 to finish orbital burn).  After rebuild test I bungled something and S2 was draining into S1, not bad but less fuel efficient than I'd like.  Still failed to finish burn.  Test 3 I got that worked out.

Stage 3 - I think I need to replace this tank and the faring above it with bigger one to finish the burn - make use of S1 thrust, and keep the shape better.

S4 - Should have enough for Munar injection and part of intercept haven't tested yet.

S5 - Should be find to finish intercept and control landing.  Lander has enough for landing and return to low munar orbit, this should stretch that nicely.

I could probably make the stretched part shorter if I rebuild the lander using the Mk 1 lander can - but I like my monstrosity as I have it currently (No pics yet, have only used Cheat menu to test).  My 2 seater Soyuz is nice enough for what it is, getting alot of mileage out of M.O.L.E. parts.

 

Edit:  I completed a Mun orbit, landing, and return with Val and Bob aboard my N-1 (current config) and made some changes to the N-1 after.  Stages still don't do what they are "suppose" to do but I overdesigned the LKO and LK stages somewhat so that they can handle the differences.

 

On the current flight the N-1 stages 1-3 put me in a suborbital flight which needed some of my S4 (burn to mun intercept stage) to complete.  S4 burned out most of the way through the burn towards Mun and S5 completed nearly all of the capture at 40,000 m above mun (final orbit heavily inclined 40x65).  Without corrections Val transfered to the lander (didn't space walk but could) and landed, walked about, and returned.  (I did forget to replace the NASA flag I set as default for the save).

Bob used the autopilot to handle docking because the lander is wonky and the LKO has a better flight computer.  The lander was able to handle re-orbiting and orbital maneuvers with some spare fuel in the tank suggesting I've over designed it.  

 

Return went very smoothly with the LKO only using 1/4 of its fuel reserves.  I can ditch the solar pannels and use Fuel cells as per the original design for future missions.  Like my Saturn V and Apollo rockets I'm sure the N-1 has enough fuel to handle trips to Minmas (I'm playing on sandbox but with Kerbal Experience turned on so currently I only have 1 star kerbals).

Now I enter planning and testing for my next big mission - Duna.  I'm going to see if I can make something NASA inspired (I haven't decided on The Martian or Constellation or a mixture) for one team and something Russian inspired for another.  I'm sort of thinking of trying to make a Russian inspired Constellation and a NASA inspire Ares mission.

Edited December 6, 2016 by loch.ness

[The Aziz]

Not today, but yesterday - first Kerbal on Eve

Congratulations Billy-Bobble, see you back on Kerbin in few decades.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go). Had to make myself a new log book first thing yesterday...

My activities yesterday began with the landing of the Old Bessie 7 fuel hauler at the new Piper Alpha 7 refinery site on Mün. The craft affected a landing eighty meters from the refinery - too far away for the refinery's winch cables. But, with the previous day's arrival of Corbas from the since-abandoned Wildcat 7 drilling outpost, I had the KAS tools available to remove a winch from the refinery and reattach it to the Hellhound 7 rover parked nearby, using the rover to bridge the gap between the two vehicles. After a lengthy repair and refitting EVA, the plan was ultimately successful and Old Bessie was successfully refueled. The lander then returned to the Munport space station where the passenger ferry Big Stink was still parked; Big Stink was refueled and sent back to Kerbin with Val, Bill and tourists Gragy and Jesthis aboard. Big Stink returned successfully to the Kerbinport space station one day later, offloading the two tourists. An Auk IV tanker spaceplane was still parked at the space station since it still had available mission fuel to offload, so Big Stink was refueled as much as possible and then Val shoved the craft off on a mission to pick up personnel from Minmus, where it should arrive in eleven days. I concluded my night with a contract to put a satellite in a polar orbit around Kerbin; Beep Beep 7m was launched and I successfully completed that mission.

I've been awake today since 2 AM local to man a security gate at the library at which I work - the slow gate - and so I spent my time playing KSP to help me stay awake. I began with a contract to test a Mk16 parachute at flight level; Jenwin piloted a Bad Idea 1a aircraft modified for the job on a quick up and down, successfully completing the mission. After taking the time to retrieve the now-empty Auk IV from Kerbinport, I launched the Hojo Delta outpost towards Mün for contract with Jenwin aboard, arriving at Mün and landing in the Midlands before the morning was over. Next up was an atmospheric analysis above 18,000 m and 1,300 kilometers from KSC, which Billy-Bobfurt completed aboard a Bad Idea 5a surveyor craft fitted for the job. A Mk3 to 2.5 m adapter was retrieved from LKO using a Bill Clinton 7a grabber probe, and a contract to gather surface science from Minmus was fulfilled by Edner aboard the Hojo Beta outpost. Strange Cargo then arrived at Kerbin from Minmus and after three aerobraking passes the craft was docked to Kerbinport. An Auk II passenger craft was sent up to retrieve Strange Cargo's passengers, docking and then successfully returning to KSC 27. Over √900k was raised from the completion of the itineraries of those eight passengers - the thing is, the way they wound getting split up while they were still at Minmusport, that didn't clear any of the tourist contracts I have in progress. All five of them, however, should be cleared when Next Objective finally returns from Minmus. The proceeds were used to launch a Hellhound 7 rover to Minmus to help with ore prospecting efforts there. Finally, the Old Bessie 7 and Overlook Hotel 7 craft have arrived at Minmus; the Old Bessie has arrived at Minmusport and Next Objective has been refueled, so I will be dispatching the ferry for home at the next opportunity. I'll also be landing Overlook Hotel in the very near future - which will pay out √450k by itself once it's in place...

Edited December 6, 2016 by capi3101

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

I tried to be a good Samaritan on a DMP server and bring a Kairbus that was missing its engines home from the island by towing it with a claw attachment on my Boeing 737-600. 

 

All went well until I got about halfway home. Then the oscillations started, with the whole setup starting to snake up and down like a worm. Eventually it got so violent that I was stalling out and we were both going down. I tried ditching the unruley Kairbus hoping this would allow me to recover, but there wasn't enough altitude, and we both went into the drink.

[RoboRay]

On 12/4/2016 at 11:18 AM, Starman4308 said:

What are you using for the rescale? What I'm using (KScale64 with Sigma Dimensions) rescales the surface to 3.2x; while that still reduces the slopes by a factor of 50% relative to stock, you still get relatively steep terrain.

On my end: more so-very-tedious ion burns to capture probes into Eve orbit.

KScale64, but I had to reduce the terrain rescaling because it puts most of Kerbin's landmass up at like 10 km altitude... which is higher than the clouds after I fixed them, because Sigma Dimensions was also rescaling the cloud layer heights above the surface and putting them nearly in space.

It's a tradeoff, either way.  It would take planetary terrains actually designed for the larger scale to not run into these kinds of problems.

On 12/5/2016 at 8:36 AM, elpollodiablo said:

If memory/part-count is a problem, i'd recommend something like SMURFF. Reduces weight of fuel tanks -> less parts -> less lag. Well unless you get a new computer at least.

6.4x rescale would be brutal without SMURFF and Procedural Parts (with the KScale64 MM script that allows longer lengths at your tech level).

[Martian Emigrant]

Hey all Kerb-amighty.

Yesterday I finaly finished my Eve-Land-And-Ascend vehicle.

http://imgur.com/a/1g4YY

Full report here:

202 tonnes of fun for 3 Kerbals. Eve is a bad mistress. She hates you coming in and she hates you leaving.

 

Now that the testing is done.....Need to do it from Kerbin.....

 

ME

[Halfdan]

i am currently working on designing a heavy lander for 20 crew

still not satisfied with its performance, alltough i am making good progress on the "landing instead of impacting" issue

any tips are welcome

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

3 minutes ago, Halfdan said:

i am currently working on designing a heavy lander for 20 crew

<snip>
any tips are welcome

Looks nice! One way to improve performance might be (unless you like to really gobble that monopropellant) to remove the large monopropellant tank and instead stick one or two small radial tanks on the bottom, or even just a small stackable one. This could save a lot of weight, allowing the LfOx you have to take you farther. By the way, what kind of places will this thing be used?

[Halfdan]

13 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

 By the way, what kind of places will this thing be used?

right now for duna

docking with a colony ship and bringing down the colonists

right now i am not satisfied with the fuel consumption and the thrust

Edited December 6, 2016 by Halfdan

[HalcyonSon]

Sent a rescue mission for my Mun Scrap Return mission... The Klaw vessel worked perfectly after a few... in-flight simulations... to nail down the landing parameters.  After one slightly space-crazy Kerbal decided to manually activate the Klaw with his face, Mission Control was able to free him remotely and convince him that the next stay in his capsule would be a short one.  The Klaw then danced a jig, did a few cartwheels, made a few pirouettes, imitated an eggbeater, and finally successfully grabbed the capsule, blocking the hatch.  Unfortunately, a few more... simulations... showed that insufficient fuel remained to even reach Munar orbit.  The rescue mission features a lightly redesigned first stage, plus a new transfer stage to ensure that enough fuel remains to take the capsule home.  

[Triop]

Today we tested a small lander under water

[dangerhamster]

As a bit of light relief from crawling across Mun in a rover....... gliding across Kerbin in airships.

After a few test hops Val took a transport prototype out, initially landing practice.

Followed by a speed test out over the ocean. And yes the antenna broke after someone forgot to retract it. Slowing down over the island for another landing temptation took hold and after much backing and filling the behemoth was tucked away in one of the hangers.

"I'm sure no-one will notice it's missing"

Guilt took over and the duo returned to base, writing the incident up as testing wether steerable nose gear would be useful.

[SmashingKirby148]

Landed the Pathfinder replica! A bit of a rough landing; knocked off some batteries... but it's still together. Time to explore!

[Odonian]

Here is about 2/3rds of Minmus base Acromyrmex 1. It still needs modules for distributing machinery and colony supplies (and support bases for producing these resources), but its fertilizer and agroponics facilities already make it pretty much self-sufficient. It is also already capable of producing some other resources of less short-term importance.

It's been a nice break from asteroid base building. Too many bad meshes on the really big ones needed for anything approaching self-sufficiency. Too many unexpected explosions.

Anyway, with my Acromyrmex colony modules I'm going for an asymmetrical, city-like look. I'm very pleased with the results so far. Here's Acromyrmex 1 from another angle, with one of the early (now abandoned) Atta colony modules in the foreground. Atta modules had a tendency to explode due to overheating when they came into physics range of piloted vessels. They also could not be welded together with other modules. I'm still dealing with overheating in the Acromyrmex modules, but the situation has been much improved.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Odonian

[Triop]

Preparing for DaKar 2017.

[The Raging Sandwich]

2 hours ago, Odonian said:

Here is about 2/3rds of Minmus base Acromyrmex 1. It still needs modules for distributing machinery and colony supplies (and support bases for producing these resources), but its fertilizer and agroponics facilities already make it pretty much self-sufficient. It is also already capable of producing some other resources of less short-term importance.

It's been a nice break from asteroid base building. Too many bad meshes on the really big ones needed for anything approaching self-sufficiency. Too many unexpected explosions.

Anyway, with my Acromyrmex colony modules I'm going for an asymmetrical, city-like look. I'm very pleased with the results so far. Here's Acromyrmex 1 from another angle, with one of the early (now abandoned) Atta colony modules in the foreground. Atta modules had a tendency to explode due to overheating when they came into physics range of piloted vessels. They also could not be welded together with other modules. I'm still dealing with overheating in the Acromyrmex modules, but the situation has been much improved.

Looks like a castle!

[The Raging Sandwich]

Ike T1 (The next generation spacecraft to fly 3 Kerbals [I downgraded it] into orbit, the Mun, Minmus and Beyond. It's a modified Minmus spacecraft launched by a Dres A rocket. Launched into a 150x140 km orbit. Used the nuclear engine to boost itself to an apoapsis of 2,700 km and then returned back to Kerbin.): Success

STS-6 (A redo of STS-3, also to test the extra monopropellant tank in the payload bay. Launched into a 160x120 km orbit then boosted itself into a 201x200 km orbit. It deployed Transit 12 successfully then boosted itself into a 300x300 km orbit. After one orbit, it boosted back down to a 160x190 km orbit, deorbited, and landed in the desert. It slightly overshot and almost landed in the ocean. Turning around back to land seriously bled off speed, making the crew take a risky landing breaking the right wing elevons but otherwise landing safely.): Success

Transit 12 (Deployed from STS-6. Boosted itself into a 71,000x71,000 km orbit to communicate with future probes to planets past Duna.): Success

Cubesat 21 (Planned to boost beyond Kerbol orbit like Cubesat 19 but failed to do so because of poor launch timing.): Failure

Cubesat 22 (A regular orbital Cubesat was fitted to an extra booster stage to redo Cubesat 21's mission only two days after its launch. Also failed to escape Kerbol.): Failure

Discovery 11 (An Eve landing probe. Designed to burn through Eve's atmosphere, parachute to the ground, and study its atmosphere and transmit the data.): Unsure

Also, Duna Orbiter 1 attempted its Duna Transfer Burn but didn't have enough fuel to complete it, just barely coming up short. Duna Orbiter 2 might be succssful because of its shorter burn time caused by a Kerbin flyby boost to aid it. Duna Orbiter 2 upgraded to "Probable success" status.

Next planned flight: STS-7 (Will be the first shuttle integrated with MechJeb. Another ion propulsion test.)

[Benji13]

@The Raging Sandwich can you please post a picture/craft file of your STS craft? I would love to see it.