GloriousWater

My shuttle misadventures continue. Note the interesting "landing" system I used.

Like a lot of people, I decided to make a shuttle. Let's just say Jeb's lucky the new cockpit has a huge impact tolerance.

Pulled ridiculous G-forces in a plane using a smallish amount of Alt-F12

So I built up my Dres base stuff over the past two days and then..... it can't even space after 3 launch attempts.

More VTOL stuff today with a rover that can land on every KSC building.... sort of. It may be a bit overpowered for Dres, its vacuum delta-v is 2km/s and its Dres TWR is 11.

I throw a KR-2L at every problem I have. After all once you start using 3.75m parts to lift the ship, you might as well use them on the transfer stage. For the return stage I usually make something lightweight like a cluster of 48-7S on a short Rockomax tank with the command pod docked to it. The nuke isn't that appealing to me as I don't like the long burn times, but I still use it on some medium designs. Although I have used KS-25x4s for part of my transfer once.... 50 second Eeloo burn anyone?

Built a VTOL base thing that'll eventually go to Dres. Despite being ridiculously un-aerodynamic (I'm using NEAR) it flies decently and those landing legs are mostly indestructible. Just have to find a way to lift it...

I tried to make a science glider that would be dropped from orbit. The first test was less than promising. The second test had similar results....

My Tylo ship is having issues. You see, I don't think it should be bending at all, let alone at this angle. This meant I had to decouple the KR-2L and I lost 1800m/s delta-v...

On my first manned Duna mission in 0.24, the mothership sucked out some of the fuel from the lander which I only noticed after landing. So it ran out while still suborbital and Jeb & Seebart had to jetback to orbit. However I still had to do an Ike flag contract, so I transferred the mothership to Ike and Seebart landed with his jetpack. Only problem, he had nowhere near enough fuel to return to orbit. I considered leaving him for now and launching a rescue mission from Kerbin before remembering that I still had a rocket in orbit. *proceeds to undock transfer stage* Yes, I landed the overly tall transfer stage (and the lab) on Ike even though its TWR was barely above 1, burning for basically the whole way down. And it didn't even have landing gear, it touched down on the docking port about 3km away from Seebart. So I return to orbit, rendezvous with Bill & Bob in the habitation module of the mothership (which used to be a Mun station) and.... No RCS. On that day in low Ike orbit, I learned to dock without RCS and did it with Jeb's mad grin on my face. Probably my best KSP moment so far. Except I hadn't discovered the screenshot key yet, so no pictures....

Carried out a refuelling mission to a Laythe ship I had in LKO. When I deorbited the debris, this happened: Damn semipermeable ground.

I have a half-assembled Jool-5 ship in LKO which I abandoned when I abandoned my 0.24.2 install because it had far too many mods on it and kept crashing. Maybe when I get a new computer I'll copy that save over or something and do the mission.

Well, I can't hold a candle to some of the monstrosities in this thread, because my biggest rocket is still relatively sane. Behold my single-launch Eeloo ship, weighing in at a "small" 1085t at launch:

My new SSTO has the ability to land vertically. Nobody said which way it had to point though

Basically any unmanned rocket you can crash into something that doesn't rely on aerodynamic lift. We don't want to kill any Kerbals, after all!* *The factual authenticity of this sentence is not guaranteed.

Also woke up really early, and landed on Eeloo at 6am without the use of a single nuke: And Kerbal Engineer says I even have enough delta-v to return Full album coming soon​TM

I find the ant engine really useful, since it can give some 3km/s delta-v from just 30 liquid fuel, with less mass than a 48-7S. The low ISP isn't that important when you can make a probe with a mass of 600kg, as saving mass tends to give better results than having a high ISP. (example: using multiple 48-7S on cubic struts instead of a nuke as a transfer stage gives higher delta-v) As for the sound and exhaust effects, I actually like them a bit

Have something I quickly threw together: Jeb stuffed some rocks in the command pod, which is totally enough science for the challenge. Next challenge: Deorbit some debris (or your fancy station, it doesn't matter) by crashing a missile really hard into it. (disclaimer: may not actually deorbit debris, but it's the Kerbal way)

Made my first SSTO in NEAR (imaginatively named SSTO Mk1) although it can't do much once it actually gets in orbit. Also, I raised my graphics settings very slightly!

Did a poor Kerbal's Jool-5 mission in career, with a Laythe "flyby" and Bop/Pol landings. (Jool 2.5?)

Well, the delta-v of a Kerbin escape burn is very similar to that of a Munar transfer burn and Jeb got a little excited. You get stuck in an 83000km Eve polar orbit with no fuel or engines.

If only my fairings hadn't broken off INSIDE the parachute...

25615m, in NEAR with two of those intake fuselage sections and 8 structural intakes. Otherwise a pretty normal looking plane. Mass is 4.16t on the runway, and the thing's nearly impossible to land safely unless you intentionally stall it right over the runway (and then it still doesn't land in one piece).

Rushed single-launch Eeloo mission after I noticed I was at a launch window. Bob, Lars and Chadfred arrive in 4 years. The fairings had to separate during the transfer burn as the boosters blocked them

So I installed this mod yesterday, and it's really handy, but one thing is bugging me. With Active Texture Management installed, this mod's toolbar button becomes a black square, which doesn't affect gameplay but just looks ugly. Does anyone have a fix for this?