What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Whackjob]

I am for a time bowing out. Big project under way. Something life changing. Will return, of course, eventually.

[Prillmeister]

Well, it's not actually today, but since I'm a truck driver and spends alot of time behind the wheel I cannot play very often. Every three weeks and the weekends I'm off duty so here's what I've been up to recent.

I'm pretty sick at people, complaining about the new aerodynamics and that it's impossible to put big rockets in to orbit nowadays. They're just to stubborn to learn the new ways, "You can't learn an old dog to sit", but indeed you can.

This little film shows me putting my Mun Ground Base in to orbit, transferring and landing. At the launch pad it weighed in at about 800 tons.

To be honest, this was not my first try. Not even my third. I think it was number.... fifteen maybe. Every failed launch brought me back to VAB, tweeking it a little bit and trying a new launch profile. It was HARD and since the payload inside the fairing isn't strutable it had a nasty habit of snapping in to if I put my velocity vector to much outside the prograde vector.

Finally I realised that no SAS was the answer. Just a little nudge at the beginning and then just let rocket gravity turn on it's own.

I will let the youtube-clip speak on it's own

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Yesterday I did my first interplanetary transfer in 1.0 - up to now I've been busy setting up my Kerbin SoI network of bases and satellites. Single launch this time to, came a little short on my orbit stages so I hade to sacrifice about 1000 m/s of deltaV of my mothership. This time I decided no reverts. I hade the chance of deorbit and safely land, but what the heck, lets go for it.

Sadly enough, I put my aerobreaking manouver to deep in Duna's atmosphere and wasn't able to rescue it so I decided to put my three main crew in the lander capsule and ditch my mothership to a certain doom (with four tourists inside ). I hade about 2000 deltaV in the lander so I thought I could land and then orbit again for a rescue mission. I then began the decend to Duna's surface. The drouge shutes opened at 5000 and main shute at 1000 but sadley I just managed to slow down to about 30 m/s only to realise that I had forgotten my solar panels and therefor, had no throttle control. The lander bounced of the surface, tumbling over but SURVIVED.

Now Jeb, Bill and Bob is stranded on Duna with a ship full of science and thier minds full of hope. A rescue mission is soon to be launched! (gotta love "no reverts")

[kelmv]

So today I finished my commstat network around Kerbin for RemoteTech. In my previous 3 attempts at this things fell apart at sat #3 (Named Atropos, of all things) when I found out I A) Didn't have the battery power needed to get through the Orbital Darkness Time with a live sat, or I forgot some important antenna, or C) The commsats lacked the dV to adjust orbit properly, and so I ended up with some dead area in my network, which isn't good. However, things seemed to work this time, and now Atropos (the 3rd Greek fate and the one who cuts the thread (fitting, huh?)) is now in orbit along with her sisters in a cozy 1,900km orbit with enough everything.

PROTIP: When making sure you are going to be in range for omnidirectional anntennas, make sure to account for the 600km radius of Kerbin. It turns out that that is terribly important.

Here we see Atropos awaiting launch. I hope this one works right...

LIFTOFF!!! Isn't this exciting? At least I know how this thing handles during ascent.

Starting our turn. So far, so good...

The hard part is done. So far the hardest part has been looking for beauty shots of a really simple rocket.

Oh boy. Now, what was that angle again? Oh right, I never did figure it out...

This looks good. Let's kick that apoapsis up without the periapsis getting too high. Let's not litter LKO like we keep doing.

Ah, here we go. The positioning stage seperates from the final lifter, and it has already turned around to assume the position

Atropos has seperated and deployed, happy in her orbit with her little booster drifting off behind her.

As you can see, My Little Booster has plenty of dV left. I'd cut it down some, but honestly, I like extra dV. It means that I can screw up.

That pink dot is Atropos, running a lovely 16.5km away. Good work, Little Booster

Last shot of Atropos in orbit and positioned. The three make a lovely little triangle in orbit, which is how it should be.

Now I just need some commsats in polar orbit, and we'll be entirely set.

Edited May 30, 2015 by kelmv

[Enkiel]

Landed two Lab : one on Mun, one on Minmus.

It was expensive (300k) since i had no mission on either, but it seems like it will quickly pay itself off, since i have 2 scientist on both to transfert data or plant a flag mission.

[BurningLegion]

^^ I'd be tempted to put the beams on the corners and mount the wheels to those.

That's an interesting idea. This is literally the second ever powered wheel vehicle I've ever constructed, so that's an experiment I'll do. I will say that I like the current I-200P configuration. The reason they're there is because I noticed the rover had a tendency to flip forward if it braked suddenly from 30m/s with no ability to right itself. I toyed with some solutions - landing legs, sepratrons - but I decided that they weren't in-character for my space program, but a giant metal rod that physically arrests the rover would be.

It's incidental that they also serve as convenient mounting points for Mk16XL chutes, with the ability to detach them after landing. As well as generally playing nicely with building my staging sequence around them (My space program does not accept the existence of fairings. We're fairtheists).

EDIT: Thanks for your input! I wound up mounting the I-200s on the corners, and the wheels on those. Gave me room for more batteries, solar panels, and actual lights (Which is probably a very good idea). It reduced maximum speed by about 33%, but also completely eliminated the tipping problem. I'll have to rework the launch vehicle, but I can get over that. And extended testing gave me enough science for a new technology.

Edited May 30, 2015 by BurningLegion

[Bloody_looser]

I've established Minmus research facility. It is full stock modular base, can be assembled in orbit and even landed in one piece.

[Jouni]

My career mode game had the basic Eve and Gilly contracts next. I toyed for a while with the idea of doing a low-tech Eve return mission. I had already unlocked half of the 160-point nodes, so it was definitely doable with Mainsails. Ultimately I decided against it, as it would have been too tedious, so I sent just simple probes.

The Gilly probe landed on a steep slope and required a couple of minutes to settle down.

[TrooperCooper]

The KSA in my career keeps working on its new space station. Oh yeah... and... planes.

Click here for details.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Finally got fed up with trying to build turbo/rapier Mk3 SSTOs (I had something very similar to Rune's Longsword, but it was just too much of a pain to fly) so I decided to keep the rapiers for my light Mk2 designs and build something altogether more powerful for heavy lifting. Early days, but here's an ascent pic...

It's rocket only, with four QuizTech linear aerospikes on there plus an SSME for some off-the-pad heft. The SSME gets shut down once TWR climbs high enough as the aerospikes have much better isp. A lot of the fuel is in the wings, hence it being relatively stubby. I'm consistently getting it to orbit with 18 tonnes payload in my simulation save, but I've not quite nailed the landing yet - I've ditched in the sea within 10km of KSC, with a nice stable reentry, so it's just a matter of playing around with burn position a bit more.

Edited May 30, 2015 by SufficientAnonymity
EDIT: Spelling, what dat?

[Concentric]

A retrograde launch, a total orbital reversal, preparation for an orbital rescue, testing of my most recent descent pod, and putting a small station and transfer stage in LKO to go to the Mun.

I took a pair of orbital tourists up on the launch of a satellite, which was intended to fulfill two contracts. One was retrograde at over a million metres altitude, and the other was prograde, reasonably low, but with periapse over 150km lower than apoapse. So, I went for the retrograde one first, releasing the descent pod after circularising at 70km, deorbiting it, and switching back to raise apoapse.

Once the first satellite contract was fulfilled, it was time to burn for the other. Total orbital reversal was performed above the ascending node, twisting the orbit about until the periapse was roughly at the point of intersection. There wasn't enough fuel left over to deorbit, not that the satellite has a parachute.

MunRod Station will fulfill a Mun Station contract, with power generation and five Kerbals. The two-man tug from Stopover Station will pick up a rescuee and deliver them to MunRod in LKO, where they will transfer to the sixth capsule, attached to the transfer stage. Then MunRod will go to orbit Mun, and the Mun lander will dock with it to take the rescuee to plant a flag for a contract. After, the rescuee will return with the transfer stage's remaining fuel, and land back on Kerbin with the attached parachute (in the decoupler).

MunRod is long, and an inconvenient payload for a conventional lifter, as I found out through repeated attempts. The lifter I used in the end was almost entirely radial to the payload, and fed liquid fuel inwards to the final stage. Even so, I needed to burn more than an FL-T800 of fuel with the transfer stage to get orbit. So I needed to refill it, and also replenish 60 units of monopropellant (taken out to get under 140t launch mass). Lifting this filler was not difficult.

I also grabbed some science around KSC, landing on the VAB, tracking hub, and Mission Control with a little jet-powered lander armed with all the science equipment I have so far. This got me enough to get Propulsion Systems, and thus the Spark and Ant. The two Sparks I have on my landers in use were experimental, but now I am in a slightly better position. The next generation of descent pod is likely to be LFO-Ant powered, with an Oscar-B, to take advantage of the greater ISP.

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Landed two Lab : one on Mun, one on Minmus.

It was expensive (300k) since i had no mission on either, but it seems like it will quickly pay itself off, since i have 2 scientist on both to transfert data or plant a flag mission.

If I recall correctly, if you have a Kerbal on the surface of something, for example in a base, you won't get a Plant Flag contract until they are no longer on the surface. This was a change immediately after Contracts were introduced, to remove an exploit. I don't know if Kerbals on ladders count, though they of course should, for some science purposes, they are considered "in flight/space over" the location.

[BurningLegion]

Based on the suggestion of a commenter here, I did some rover iterations and testing!

Moved the short I-beams to the corners into an "X" shape, added some lights, some more batteries, and more solar panels. It was necessary to completely redesign the launch vehicle, but that was pulled off.

The interplanetary stage incorporated some...unique...staging I wasn't all that sure of, so I did a burn test individually to see just how the game would react to what I did. Turns out that the game drew from the lower ring of LF tanks first evenly when they were separated from the upper ring by decouplers, so I organized the staging as: Ring of 6 100LF tanks, asparagus staging of 6 100LF tanks, central tank. Totals about 7K Delta V. There are some purpose-built radiators and heat sinks as well, and the descent stage features a ring of four parachutes, a reaction wheel, and a heat shield.

I organized the launch vehicle as two rings of six LVT-45 boosters surrounding a central KR-2L booster. Mounted above the KR-2L is a Skipper with a Rockomax X-16. There was a snafu with the launch clamps that resulted in burning up two LVT-45 boosters before we actually got moving. We also had 12 R8 winglet control surfaces, which also marvelously conducted heat away from the KR-2L. The circularization burn had to be finished on the LV-N.

There is one serious issue, though, that keeps me from sending this launch on to Duna or Eve or Moho or Laythe. The navball is reversed. When the rocket is burning prograde, the navball reads retrograde. I'm assuming something is wrong with the orientation of parts on my ship. I suspect it's because the rover body (Which I'm using to control the rocket) isn't considered to be aligned correctly with the rocket's axis of thrust. Flipping the rover would be a lot of work at this point, so I'm probably going to attach a different probe core to command with and manually set it to be controlled from there. When I get the navball issue sorted out, I'll send one probe apiece to each exo-planet I think has an atmosphere - this particular launch is going to serve to test my re-entry systems again and make sure I can disentangle the rover from the parachute ring.

[Cuky]

Today I have launched a mission which as a goal has to complete 3 contracts: put satellite in equatorial retrograde orbit of Minmus, put a base for at least 6 Kerbals on the surface of Minmus and send or recover scientific data from Minmus' surface. I think I may over-engineered it though.

It is now in Kerbin's orbit waiting for its transfer as for now Mun is kinda blocking my way.

[Goddess Bhavani]

This is an outrage. After I told Bill I made a plane bigger than my hangar doors, he replied "it will cost me money to resolve this".

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Also on the ceiling of the cargo bay are my all new awesome crossed struts construction technique inspired by *blush* corset lacing, of all things.

[StrandedonEarth]

Finally got this beast into orbit, after several attempts and liberal application of TCA and vernors. It's mission is to move fuel around my Minmus operations. I was disappointed that it was only doing less than 3 m/s on the surface of Minmus, so it mostly flies from place to place.

When I was finally getting it dialed in, one launch had a pilot error that resulted in a flip, but at that point I knew it was controllable. Revert*. During the next launch I managed to execute the pitchover perfectly (started at 1km, reached 45 deg @ 10km), but that meant it was going too fast too low and it went into RUD. Revert, and with a slower pitchover it finally made orbit!

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*Yes, I was reverting during the last few launches, but funds were getting low by then. I absorbed the losses during earlier attempts that left debris all over the place. I had to delete fairings to allow RCS and TCA to do their thing.

Edited May 30, 2015 by StrandedonEarth

[Bev7787]

I sent a voyager probe. To Moho

[Mardec]

I have just started my own lets play series of the kerbal space program. If you wants some inspiration go check out my channal at: https://www.youtube.com/MardecGames

I love this game so much and i want to share my joy with you guys

[Goddess Bhavani]

Released my stock low-tech micro shuttle, used for my first career supersonic flights, first multi-crew orbital flights and onwards to Mun, Minmus and beyond.

It even comes with an all-new ridiculous story that makes no sense whatsoever.

[Jouni]

I established a new runway at the mountains near KSC.

Located at 5580 m above sea level, landing there can be a bit tricky.

[Kozak]

I built 6 probes.

https://www./folder/s97b5okvhp1qd/Le_Probes

[LittleBlueGaming]

Toyed around with space station control systems. Created a core using the Rockomax Hubmax. One each attachment point I put a monoprop tank, Advanced Inline Stabilizer, battery, port, and 4 RCS thrusters. Next I attached a solar-panel module, with an Advanced Inline Stabilizer at the end furthest from the Hubmax, and 4 RCS thrusters.

I found that I can use all the RCS thrusters and the entire structure is very stable, although I have to kill them to stabilize completely, otherwise it will over-correct a tiny bit back and forth. I tried using all the Advanced Inline Stabilizers, that didn't go well. The hub rotated way too fast for the docking port to hold. Using a combination of all the RCS thrusters and just one of the Advanced Inline Stabilizers seemed to work best for moving the whole thing around, without any deflection at the port connections.

I had fun, although it wasn't a cheap experiment. Also, for 109 parts this thing is ridiculously small

Also, I hate the stock lights, if you change their color, the lights themselves should change to match. All those ugly yellow lights really kill my color theme.

[Wakaleo]

I flew my first jet aircraft halfway around Kerbin to fulfil half of a contract. Was it worth it? Hardly, at least not for the time and effort involved, but I got a lot of experience flying planes!

Hey Jouni, nice landing! That looks as risky as the strip I landed on a long time ago on Stewart Island off the south end of New Zealand. Or even more risky, any number of strips in the highlands of New Guinea.

[inigma]

Just had to share this here. I developed a single subassembly that fits three RemoteTech comsats in a Mk3 cargo bay for a starter constellation:

Download: http://kerbalx.com/inigma/STS-ComSats-RemoteTech

More Pics:

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[GreeningGalaxy]

Today, Agaphe Kerman forgot her fears and embraced her return to oblivion:

She then bounced off the ground and returned to KSC unharmed, but her colleagues say she hasn't been the same since. There's something a little more... BadS about her now.

[Enkiel]

Today i finally managed to land my science roover on the mun....

[Kamuchi]

Captured 2 E class asteroids, could post an album that isn`t uploaded, but here are some awsome screenshots

Personally loving the last one, wich was the last of the serie