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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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On 5/8/2023 at 6:15 PM, chimera industries said:

I've decided to do a bit of a design overhaul on the Laythe-Planes. Instead of just a single RAPIER engine, I have two on the ends of the wings. On the central fuselage, I had added a Whiplash engine, but I found that the 2 RAPIERs were enough to get into orbit, and the Whiplash engine sucked up almost all my liquid fuel, leaving my RAPIERs useless once in space. I might replace the Whiplash with either a liquid fuel tank or maybe the Nerv atomic engine. I'm thinking the fuel tank, I don't really have a use for a long-range, low-thrust engine like the Nerv, as the Laythe-Planes will rendezvous with the mothership in orbit.

So when I redesigned the LPs, (Laythe-Planes) I had to add more fuel because I had more engines, which meant more wing area, and then I added an lv 909 because the rapier has low isp closed cycle...

You see were this is going. Too heavy, too hard to steer, a plethora of problems. So I've taken all that out and heavily simplified the design. Honestly, I don't know why I added so much more to it, the original design got into orbit with no problems.  Also, the new design weighs only 2 thirds of the previous design.

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Chose a MK2 and crewed it with 2 immortals just in case.  Took off from KSC and refueled on Minmus, then took off to solar orbit.  Just lit the fuse to Moho.

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Made it and all is well so far.

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It took 3 tries to get a successful landing.  The first time it ran out of gas, the 2nd time it came down on a steep hillside and knocked off a wingtip, but the 3 rd time it landed on a "flat" area and even had some gas left!  I gotta plan these missions better because coming in on fumes is nerve wracking.

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Britain, mad about loosing their old empire, decides to rebuild with...

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...a space empire. The New Jamestown base is Great Britain's first colony beyond their home! However, the Space Spaniards aren't just ready to let England colonize their new world...

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Today I sent a tiny cute rover to the Mun, to investigate some crater-like formations that Bob spotted when he landed there, few months ago.

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It's in fact made from an old car that Bill found in the "Kerbal General Junkyard", and strapped with a few antennas on it, as well as this nice scanner arm, repurposed from a filmmaker camera.
Doesn't drive straight, but it works !

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Upon examination, the crater appears to be much bigger than expected. And, some "green genetic ooze" traces are still present of its surface and suggest, after analysis, that instead of
being a crater, it was in fact a "nest" that held some eggs of an unkown ancient "extra-kerbinal" specie. Quite strangly, certain parts of its DNA code are very similar to the Kerbal one...

screenshot65.png

Further investigation required... ;) 

Edited by kurgut
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24 minutes ago, Socraticat said:

@kurgutThe tongue... :lol:

Edit: I'm not the only one that sees a tongue... right?

You're absolutly right ! :sticktongue:
That's indeed a special scientific instrument designed to "lick" the crater surface in order to take a sample and analyse its taste, to see if it's edible or not... And thus see if it would fit well in Bob's latest cake recipe :D

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Took a contract to ferry 7 tourist from the Desert Airfield to the KSC and back.

I used my Dash 8 inspired craft.

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Starting at the desert airfield.

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Half way to the KSC.

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On final at the KSC.

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Doing the passenger exchange at the SPH.

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Bye KSC, headed back to the desert airfield.

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Half way back to the desert airfield.

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On final at the desert airfield.

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Dropped the passengers off at sunset.

Edited by SPliT-xSEcoND
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Today I designed a launch my first space station in LKO in this career, Starlab-1 ! It will mainly focus on testing medium term stay in space on kerbals, to prepare for future manned initiative on Kerbin's moons, and beyond, later !

Standing by to launch, in a beautiful sunset, as every other sunset is on Kerbin really... Kerbals don't even know the word "rain" exists or what it means... :D

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Liftoff !

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Clear booster sep

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As altitude is gained, a more beautiful view of the planet is revealed, showing those cities, that yet not a single kerbal knows about ^^ Who lives there ? ;) 

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Fairing separation confirmed

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Aaaand MECO, followed by second stage ignition

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Orbit achieved ! Orbital height is 150 km, to avoid more intense radiation found in the farther space, until we're prepared to go there... Aren't we green enough ? :confused:

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The first crew will come shortly after, for a first 70 days stay :) 

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Edited by kurgut
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After about 8-10 launch attempts, I got my big lander on Minmus. It's named LJP 410... I started the build as a "Little Jool Probe" and it became the complete opposite, but the name stuck. 

2073t at launch, 120t on Minmus

7686 m/s vacuum at launch, 32 m/s on Minmus !!!

More pics and failed attempts link here.

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On 5/12/2023 at 12:12 PM, chimera industries said:

So when I redesigned the LPs, (Laythe-Planes) I had to add more fuel because I had more engines, which meant more wing area, and then I added an lv 909 because the rapier has low isp closed cycle...

You see were this is going. Too heavy, too hard to steer, a plethora of problems. So I've taken all that out and heavily simplified the design. Honestly, I don't know why I added so much more to it, the original design got into orbit with no problems.  Also, the new design weighs only 2 thirds of the previous design.

I took a much-needed break from my Jool 5 project, and worked on a mission. The mission is to show appreciation for Dres, link here, and my project will launch a billboard with an inspiring message to Dres. As practice for what will actually be my first interplanetary mission, I had a small craft with infinite fuel via cheats on a sandbox save and did a quick mission to Dres. Surprisingly easy! Several attempts to launch the billboard failed, then I had the idea to launch this long, vertical thing vertically instead of horizontally. I was concerned about weight imbalance from storing the billboard in the fairing sideways, but the stability gained from it taking up much less fairing space is worth it. Maybe this can be a mission report soon!

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After I uploaded Plane Prime V1 onto KerbalX (the first version of Kerbin's Prime Minister's official plane), I flew around with one of my old planes from 3.5 years ago: the Aerial Transportation Vehicle. I wondered how well that would serve as a Plane Prime.

  • At the time I made the ATV (aerial transportation vehicle), I just built it as a low-capacity airliner. I didn't plan for anything serious with it, nor did I (realistically) believe I would ever fly it again.

 

Mp7T63E.png

  • Picture of the plane in the SPH
    • This was taken December 2019, before I added the modifications today
  • May 2023 modifications include
    • Autostrutting everything while removing the strut connectors (per @IMLL1's recommendation from years ago)
    • A Kerbnet action group, which would come in real handy when flying in the dark
      • So you can see if you're over water or unsuitable mountains
    • An action group for the ramp, which I had neglected to activate when I first made this plane
    • (UNAVAILABLE IN 2019) Nav and beacon lights, as well as some cargo in the passenger cabin

 

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  • This is the plane flying at my finalized cruising altitude and velocity (see chart below)
  • Although I can fly way faster than 815 m/s, I would rather not scare my passengers by having their aircraft engulfed in flames the entire time
    • And for military veterans and/or fire or plane crash survivors, looking out the window would definitely cause some panic attacks.

 

Aerial Transportation Vehicle

(CURRENT Plane Prime)

Test Run Performance Stats

Crew Capacity

4 crew + 16 passengers

Power Plant

4 x J-X4 “Whiplash”

Total Empty Cargo Capacity

20 (9 loaded + 11 empty)

Landing Gear Configuration

Tricycle

Cruising Altitude

15.3 km

(Can go higher)

Clear Alt Test Mountains?

YES

Cruising Surface Velocity

815 m/s

(Any faster and the plane catches fire)

Expected Range

3,400 km

Takeoff Velocity

110 m/s

 

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  • Landing ~319 km SHORT of the KSC.
    • I flew almost 3,300 km before switching off the autopilot and looking for a place to land
    • I had 500 units of fuel left, but I was over water* so I had to fly around until I found a suitable land mass
      • I wouldn't have known if I was over water or land had I not switched Kerbnet and the auto-refresh on
  • Rare footage of Prime Minister Bush Kerman Junior wearing his old flight uniform. Here, he is standing next to his wife, First Lady Lauren Kerman, in front of Plane Prime.

 

Feel free to download my craft file and try it out for yourself. Also, if you're interested in some Kerbal aviation history, be sure to check out my Plane Prime V1 as well.

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Designed two cluster missions to complete some lucrative contracts, grab some science and set up something of a communications network for low Earth orbit. At about 5 tons each, neither is really pushing the (brand new) LV which can manage 10 tons to orbit but they can’t be launched in one go due to size, shape and target orbit constraints.

Also did a flyby of Venus the day after Venera 1 did it IRL, however unlike Venera 1- and most of my early flyby missions in various saves- this one actually had a signal back to Earth and returned much data as it flew past.

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On 5/15/2023 at 3:23 PM, chimera industries said:

I worked on a new mission. The mission is to show appreciation for Dres, link here, and my project will launch a billboard with an inspiring message to Dres. Several attempts to launch the billboard failed, then I had the idea to launch this long, vertical thing vertically instead of horizontally. I was concerned about weight imbalance from storing the billboard in the fairing sideways, but the stability gained from it taking up much less fairing space is worth it. Maybe this can be a mission report soon!

Got totally sidetracked and made a Mun orbital surveyor. Using the rovemax probe core, (100% anomaly detection) I've found 7 or 8 anomalies so far. I also tried to make a lander designed for use in a vacuum but could also land like a space shuttle. It didn't work, so I took off the wings and turned it into a Duna lander. I'll have to decrease the thrust limiter on the engines, by a lot.  I won't be playing KSP for a while as I have a buttload of homework to do, mostly because I was playing KSP instead. Wish me luck, it's all due on Friday!

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Highlights of our latest manned mission to Minmus ! This will be hopefully the last flight of the Geminik spacecraft, until we upgrade to a better capsule, capable of holding 3 kerbals..

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Liftoff !

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Tower JET
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Orbit achieved, and after TMI, the flower opens..! :D
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Jeb was sleeping so Bob had to attempt the docking procedure by himself...
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See  ya soon home !
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(Gonna spoiler the rest or it will eat a full page.. oups ^^ )
Minmus arrival and landing :

Spoiler

Some EVA activities before landing, checking our new shiny experiments, that yet Bob doesn't understand a thing about

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Landing is go ! Good ignition

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How beautiful is a Minmus sunset hmm ? Yeah it is :) 

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Bob trying to assure mission control he's doing very serious field work...
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Minmus departure :

Spoiler

Bob was bored after 14 min on the surface, so mission control kindly allowed him to launch for rendez-vous, but carefully.

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Following to the letter this last explicit word, Bob took a very safe close pass, almost hugging this nice mountain... Closest atlitude achieved was 4 meters from the surface at orbital speed^^
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He called Jeb to arrange a rendez-vous later, after some quick phasing orbits..
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Aaand, hard docked..

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The lander will be let in minmus orbit, for later reuse. While everybody already knows we aint gonna reuse that piece of scrap, but use shiny new and more powerfull equipment instead ! But  that's one of the quirks voted by the ecological council at KSC, to impose a minimal re-use quota. "We don't care, we wan't to harvest everything, every planet, every pebble, every last bit of dust agreggate and even the sun. And only Kerbin should be left, alone and shining on all its Kerbal glory.."     Bob.  "..for eternity, and we will..." BOB !! Stop it please.

After this eventful conversation with mission control, our Kerbals fly home, to their beautiful planet

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Hotness atmospheric things

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Jeb is awake this time, by chance, and can manage the reentry procedure...

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Chutes deployed !

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We come back with quite a chunk of science, and most importantly : a jam's jar of delicious Minmus green dust, sampled from its surface... Very good for the skin, or to spice up some dish ! 

Cheers :) 

Edited by kurgut
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10 minutes ago, kurgut said:

until we upgrade to a better capsule, capable of holding 3 kerbals..

Look no further, for I happen to have a tourist transport capable of taking up to seven kerbals to the surface of the Mun OR Minmus. 

  • You can land on one and orbit the other with it, but you cannot land on both.

 

4luXnnX.jpg

  • Tourist Transport Mk. III on the surface of Minmus
    • Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/Mars-Bound_Hokie/Tourist-Transport-III
      • I know that the craft file was uploaded months ago, but that's because it's been buried in my career save files for years and I haven't touched it until recently during a cleanup. Even then, I only edited my craft to correct misaligned engines.
  • After using this to successfully complete tourist contracts in my career save over four years ago, I started a challenge for better tourist transports.  Maybe you can use one of those.

 

Hope this helps. Link to the (completed) challenge can be found here:

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SPACE NEWS GAZETTE

If this looks like OverKill, you've got the picture.

Three Kerbonauts in a hurry to get to Dres hitch a ride on a "Big Thumper"...

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...a High Energy Transfer in progress...

The Escort VI is my largest (of 3) Transfer Injection Boosters and I could have easily used the smallest for this job (but that wouldn't have made the front page either).  :)

Edited by Hotel26
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 After my JNSQ save started acting weird, I decided to start a x2.5 scale GPP game.

 The first orbit around Gael launches. 

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Spoiler

Second stage takes over

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The last stage completes orbital insertion.

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Jeb does some EVA science.

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The fiery re-entry is had

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And a good chute is had.

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Finally complied the videos from Albatross Adventures and posted it on my Radio Club's YT as a new series I'm working on that will showcase what my club members do asides from radio.

 

 

 

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This has been a busy day for our space program !!

After all those years, I finally made it, my first helicopter using breaking ground parts (yeah I know, it took me some time :D)

It's ugly as a kraken, if anyone has ever seen one, but hey, it flies ! Our kerbals will takes this to do some test takeoffs/landings/hover flight, and fly to the nearby biome in search for weird giant trees...
We'll do a more streamlined and nice looking version in the future for sure ! This is just to measure safety, and maneuverability !

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Easy, eeeaaasy..

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Well, we did smash in the tree, so the flight ends here.. But you know the N°1 thing... "Any landing you can walk off is..."

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Next we deployed 2 space telescopes, one for taking very high definition pictures of Kerbol's bodies, and the other to track for potential DSP (Deep Space Pebbles) endangering Kerbin...

Spoiler

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This last one served as a test platform for this diode laser transmitter, that may be used, in quite a long time, for future beam power network applications....

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Meanwhile, Bob conducted a climate study on the Southern Ice Shelf. Bob loves sunsets. So he was quite pleased to notice that there's a perpetual sunset over there... So he announced mission control he was moving there... they weren't quite compliant to his request

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Spoiler

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We rotated the crew of Starlab-1 ! 

Spoiler

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Our Marinok probes arrived to Duna, to explore and land on both Duna and its big moon :

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Spoiler

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Almost at the same time, Marinok-M, one of our earliest probe, arrived at Moho, after having used a gravity assist from Eve to get there. Tho it will only do a flyby, for now ; )

Spoiler

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With all this juicy chunk of science acquired, we could unlock some new tech, mainly the new shiny MK2 spaceplane parts, and Bill was thrilled by the mk2 inline cockpit :

(this is warbird cockpit mod btw, old, but still one of the best IVA creations pack out there < 3 )

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Spoiler

Front seat is for main piloting and flying in atmosphere
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While back seat is dedicated to orbital navigation : (noticed those fancy retro style RPM screens ? with selectable display, they're never used and are awesome !!)

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And hold on, sit down, because I had to.... bottom left of this purple screen, you can see a "SEAT ROT" button... yes, YES, the seat can rotate backward and face the docking operation panel !

What on Earth do we need more ? :D that's too much coolness, can't wait to fly this baby

CwVNmk9.png

Peace

Edited by kurgut
Redacted by moderator
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