What did you do in KSP1 today?

[GeneralMDBK]

Did some work on my new station. Has a two Kerbal SSTO and a lander with refueling capability.

Each craft weighs 10.3t

Also I'm having trouble posting these images as albums if anyone has a tip. Cause I always just end up with this: <iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="//imgur.com/a/GUIKs/embed"></iframe>

[TrooperCooper]

Brought a handfull of new modules to my Mun colony. Ongoing mining and refining process has begun, though I will have to bring more drilling units to increase the output of exotic minerals sufficiently...

[Guz]

watching:

[NecroBones]

Fun with fairings.

[Janos1986]

I tried to build a space shuttle to dismantle my old space station piece by piece, felt the orange tank was a waste of money and fuel an thought "eh, I'll just make an SSTO"

And so I did.

The pics are from the maiden flight of the Leviathan I, as you can see it lacks RCS thrusters.

The purpose of this test flight was to see how much oxidizer could be left home after a KSC landing from a 100km stable orbit; it went pretty good, I ended up saving around 550 units of it.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited January 29, 2015 by Janos1986

[Tidus Klein]

Had my first Crash due to hitting the memory cap! YA RO all the way...plus AJE,plus FAR, plus B9, plus TAC, PLus......owww god......WHY GAME DATA FOLDER WHY!

[Liowen]

I did some tweaking on the Zipper, my turbo jet/RCS SSTO jet. It had some balance issues (still does while holding a node), as well as the turbo jet engine having a gap between the engine and tank. The second issue was fixed with the new offset tool and pulling it back into the fuel tank. It should do well on the coming mission to Laythe as part of a package.

[Draconiator]

Finished the Envoy I. The landers have tons of dV, so I may send some to Minmus and Mun. I had to design an entirely new launcher and lander because I was running into the "Reaction Wheels no work" with the other one, I suspect it was a Mechjeb issue.

Here's me coming in to dock the last one. Only thing left is a refueling canister on the only docking port left. and as stated this one is going to Eve.

[moogoob]

Built my first (successful) space shuttle, the SpaceM Nastybird GL Mk1. 2-stage, takes off like a rocket, lands like a gliding brick. Transports 4 plus pilot and copilot. Pics later! Made orbit (without any weird aerodynamic fidgeting, which plagues my spaceplane designs for some reason), docked with a space station and returned back to Kerbin, landing safely on its own landing gear. In one piece.

I'm planning sequels and refinements.

[KrizzGaming]

I docked lander with endurance

[astropapi1]

I docked lander with endurance

A picture or two would be nice, you know, for those of us who don't know what "endurance" is...

[sumrex]

I got the brilliant idea I would build a ship to harvest XP for all Kerbal Kind astronauts simultaneously.

While Immensely effective the ship above accidentally ended the entire kerbal universe when two kerbs tried to occupy the door at the same time. A quick save back showed the KSP program effectively dead. All crew listed as dead. Only Jeb and Bill remained. Unfortunately for them though they were solo pilots on space stations with no one to recover them.

After starting universe 2.0 I built the following:

An Early Mun Base...

Behold the Cramo-Matic Base.... Holds 17 Kerbals in a very small package to blast off to far away locales.

Edited January 29, 2015 by sumrex

[Axelord FTW]

Got to complete the test I couldn't do yesterday with the RAPIER engine. This is me coming back after one full orbit and landing, something I usually screw up or just decide to pass (by ditching everything and landing the command section only via parachute).

Also, I got this monstrosity on the Mun as part of a contract (Base, with science lab, docking port, antenna and space for 7 kerbals). Landed it with 150m/s left of delta-v. I rarely do anything on the Mun (I prefer minmus) so I wasn't sure of the d/v requirements. Pretty happy how it turned out.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Axelord FTW

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Finally found the Bop Kraken.

[Fr8monkey]

RIP baby Kraken...

[CptRichardson]

Working on designing the next section of my San Kerbsisco Drive Yards, of which I need to actually post up onto the forums.

[Spektyr]

I solved a series of problems that had been preventing me from doing the Visual Survey of Kerbin misions and their ilk.

Specifically:

1. I categorically suck at landing spaceplanes. (I can do it, but not reliably, and even the bravest Kerbals don't trust my 50% survival rating.)

2. I have level 1 runway and SPH, due to problem #1 - they just haven't been a good investment so far.

3. I have level 2 pad and VAB.

Mission criteria:

1. Craft must be able to reach the far side of Kerbin.

2. Craft must be able to land/takeoff within my handicap.

3. Craft must fly stable.

4. Craft must be able to exceed 20km altitude.

5. Craft must carry basic science instrumentation (no goo or materials required).

Typically what I do to land planes is I put a bunch of radial parachutes all around the center of mass, fly to where I want to be, cut the engines, stall, and pop the chutes. Then I can use the engines to taxi to a more precise location on the ground if needed.

After several attempts to meet all the requirements, I decided the 30 part limit was just too restrictive. A VTOL would be ideal for "in the wild" takeoffs and it solved the 30 part limit as well: I could launch it from the pad through the VAB. Of course I designed it in the SPH for the symmetry function, saved, then loaded it in the VAB and launched. This massively expanded my options, but I was still limited by the lack of custom control groups, which meant I have to manually activate and shutdown each engine, which in turn means I can really only have one vertical and one horizontal engine without producing fatally off-center thrusts.

Early versions were dual Basic Jet designs, which were scrapped due to the low service ceiling - it just wouldn't do more than poke it's nose over 14km, and couldn't reliably hold anything over 12km. (EDIT: I did fly the early version on several missions, but with the drop tanks it would barely hold 8km which made for some annoying detours around mountains.) Switching the Basic Jet on the back to a Turbo Jet required some re-balancing thanks to the extra 0.2t weight it has, but once done I had a really effective supersonic VTOL with considerable range.

At this point I've just done some basic flight tests - it is stable with and without the drop tanks and at all fuel levels. I've been able to climb to and maintain 23km altitude and I think I can eek a bit more out of it than that if I'm patient. Speed record for this design so far is north of 1300m/s, and that's at over 50% fuel in the main tank (drop tanks discarded) in level flight, so I know I can get more if I need it.

An unintended benefit of the design is that the drop tanks it uses to extend range to distant areas of Kerbin can also be swapped out for other parts for those pesky "test such-and-such at this altitude range and speed range" missions. I can strap those things on under wing, fly them up and test them with far greater ease than a rocket now (and I have full control to return everything to KSC for 100% part value).

This is one of my favorite things in KSP: solving a problem that is constrained by multiple layers of restrictions whether they be unlocked parts, buildings, or a penchant for distributing spaceplane parts evenly across a kilometer of runway.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Spektyr

[Fr8monkey]

First, I would upgrade the runway. Level 1 is not much more than a bumpy dirt road. I can't even take off from one much less land on one.

[DunaRocketeer]

I unlocked the higher performance jet engines last night, and made this. Really pleased with it!

[Kerano]

I hit 99,999,999 funds in my stock Beta Than Ever career.

[Cuky]

I have found a design flaw in satellites I have launched yesterday. Seems that 3 KW Rocketry batteries aren't enough to keep 3 antennas powered up (the largest one is offline as I don't have anything that far away). It seems that I will need to go through contracts as fast as I can to earn funds so that I can upgrade R&D to be able to unlock larger solar panels.

[Axelord FTW]

I have found a design flaw in satellites I have launched yesterday. Seems that 3 KW Rocketry batteries aren't enough to keep 3 antennas powered up (the largest one is offline as I don't have anything that far away). It seems that I will need to go through contracts as fast as I can to earn funds so that I can upgrade R&D to be able to unlock larger solar panels.

Early, I just added some lightweight structural elements or empty fuel tanks and plastered them with 1x1 solar panels. They ended up looking like tubes of solar panels.

[KerbMav]

Flew a crew and science retrieve mission to the Moon Bus in its excentric orbit - also pumped all the remaining fuel into it.

Launched the same craft again to bring three new recruits up into orbit and refuel it some more.

Both capsules landed with >9m/s - the landing gear oomphed audibly, but nothing was damaged.

Started using parachutes on my first stages - and started forgetting to do so right after - for (modded) recovery of parts.

Accepted a "Test the LVN in Orbit" contract and saved myself a bit of science and funds for unlocking them by taking three into orbit and leaving them there with docking nodes for later use - I am actually not sure I saved any funds by that, but I can ignore this tech node for a bit longer. *nyah-nyah-nyah*shuffles hands*

The crew of this mission is doing calculations for a possible transfer to the Moon Bus so they can join the others kerbonauts on their way to the KIR orbital station.

Finally got to read through my e-mails in mission control - with a bunch of new contracts on our hands, KSC will be busy designing crafts for all of them. Especially the trip into Kerbols orbit will mean lots of excitement for a large number of greenhorns.

(Really need to keep my eyes open for a mod that allows field promotions, at least in Kerbin's orbit - having to return them to Kerbin's surface everytime costs to much time and funds. )

[Pillow]

After watching every tutorial I could find online I successfully docked two spacecraft on second attempt.

[capi3101]

Last night I knuckled down on getting my current set of contracts finished. Sent a science probe out to the Mun to satisfy both a satellite contract and a "sci data from Mun" contract. Got the thing in the orbit I needed, went to collect the sci...and suddenly realized the damn instrument I put on the probe was a seismometer, not a gravioli detector. #facepalm.

Second attempt at the sci data went better but I was annoyed for having to make the trip.

Sent Jeb and Bob out in the direction of Minmus, chased by a probe that will be heading into a tundra orbit. Probe at 5,000 m/s of delta-V in its own right (i.e. not including the booster phase), so I would certainly hope it's got enough to cover the inevitable screwups. That one should all go okay as long as I don't hit Minmus in the process of putting it in the right orbit.

Put a satellite around Kerbin for a contract. That one went alright; got credit for it, which was good considering it was going to encounter the Mun on its next orbit...

Last but not least I remembered how to build a proper Turbojet/rocket combo SSTO and sent up Tamlin Kerman in Turtledove 7 to rescue Richemonde Kerman. Complete success on the mission there, though I was worried about the landing there for a while. Being off-center on the Level 2 runway is most definitely NOT a good thing. Still, I didn't tear anything off, which is more than I can sometimes say about landing craft on the Level 3 runway...

Took on a whole bunch of new contracts to replace the ones fulfilled, of course. Got missions to put a space station up around Kerbin and ground bases on Mun and Minmus, one to collect EVA data from the Munar surface and a flag planting Mission (three for one, there), and a mission to do some ground exploration on Minmus (will try to combine that one with the mission I've got to Minmus at the moment - not sure I can do that since the contract was accepted after the prior mission was launched).

Got the Astronaut Complex and Administration Building fully upgraded at this point. I think I'ma gonna go for Level 3 Runway next and definitely Level 3 R&D when I can get to it. I plan to use the science from the Minmus mission (once again, it's a Geschosskopf Sci Bomb design) to grab nukes, at which point it'll be time to think about going interplanetary.