scottadges

I'm already working on a new shuttle, an upgraded/improved version of the one used to complete STS-1a from the v4 Challenge. I've added quite a bit of LFO capacity, as well as adjusted the landing gears and adding exterior lights. I've also completely re-worked the external tank and heavy SRBs, now that I think I actually understand how the CoT/CoM works in terms of vertical launches. She's pretty thoroughly tested at this point and I've successfully gotten her into a circular 110 km orbit with about 1300 m/s DV remaining. Will do some more adjustments before committing to the final mission and posting here for review. Thanks for your work moderating this challenge!

This happens somewhat regularly. I'm not sure if it's me... or is this something that other people experience? Sometimes when I go back to the Space Center either from the Tracking Station or the VAB/SPH.... KSC will be under water. Often it's the entire VAB that is under water. Other times it's sticking out. In this case, the little air traffic control tower is also slightly poking out of the water. Here's my full mod list (for reference):

I am simply loving the new badges for the challenge! I might have missed it, but is there an explanation for how the colors/elements of the badges work for stock vs. modded? I can see the stars for different levels, obviously. Is it just the color ring around the outside of the badge? EDIT: I now realized this is the v5 of the challenge (read back, also on the v4 challenge page) so now I'm caught up!

More fun with small probes and nuclear power! This is the Kerbin Polar Orbiter, a nuclear-powered, xenon-fueled "geological survey & magnetometry" satellite (that just happens to have a high-powered digital imaging array... COUGH Spy Satellite COUGH)

I've been playing about with mini rovers and probes, seeing what interesting craft I could come up with. This one was fun and quite interesting to "fly" (get it!). Diptera Flying Rover (from the Latin "Diptera", meaning flying insect) More photos at my Imgur: https://imgur.com/a/p2iTO Total D/V: 3 m/s Mass: 1,685 Kg TWR: 2.42 Parts: 25 Command Pod: AES Pod (Umbra Space Industries) Power required: .07 Ec/s (4.2 Ec/min) Electrical Power: 276 Ec total battery capacity Power Generation: Total 96 Ec/s (5,760 Ec/min) 1x .625m Nuclear reactor: 0.1798t, 36 Ec/s (Umbra Space Industries) 1x MK-0 'KerboPower' Fission Generator: 0.287t, 60Ec/s (Kerb Kastria, Inc.) 197 Kg total Enriched Uranium 250Kw total heat transfer required Thermal Cooling (Wings): 2x VF-150 'Beta' Radiators 300Kw total heat transfer capacity Thrust: 4x Micro Ducted Fan Engines (USI) 5,016 Ec/min required (20.9 Ec/s per engine) 1.36 intake atm required 4Kg intake atm provided

I originally started playing KSP on console and it was actually a lot of fun. You figure out little hacks to deal with the control scheme, how to deal with wobbly craft, and the like. I got frustrated though by the lack of precision and just general annoyance/difficulty doing things that I could see PC players (via YouTube) doing with ease: maneuver nodes, moving parts with VAB, etc. So I decided to upgrade to a gaming PC, in large part to play games like KSP and be able to mod them. KSP is literally 1000% better on PC, especially with mods. I'm not saying this as a dig to consoles. And not trolling console gamers either, I know that not everyone can (or wants to) upgrade to PC. But if you are really wanting to play this game to its fullest potential, even with a basic upgraded PC and a few mods, it is so much more playable. Where I had maybe 20 hours on KSP console, I'm currently at 451 hours on KSP via Steam alone. Just my experience. Thought I'd share.

Munar Lander Program This is why I love this game: the ability to design, test, and operate spacecraft with remarkable detail. Certainly why KSP is so popular and has such a devoted community. I approached this program like any design project: start with a prototype, refine the concept, and test in specific situations until successfully meeting the requirements. Program Goals: Small craft, no more than 2 kerbals Operable between Munar orbit and the Mun surface (no Kerbin return) Refuelable (ore tanks, drills, and ISRUs) Maneuverable: good amount of RCS, thrusters, and reaction wheels Evolution of the Munar Lander: Design Note: From the outset, I knew I was working with modded parts and planning to clip parts within other parts to achieve the overall visual design. The fuel tanks, for example, are attached to the underside but then clipped into the main body. Likewise with the landing legs and RCS tanks. The ore tanks and ISRU's in particular are clipped together so they create a smaller profile component. Lessons Learned: Know your component requirements: The fatal flaw of the Mark 1 was putting an LH2 engine on a craft with LFO tanks (d'oh!) Don't under-estimate for DV & TWR: Mark 2 was successful, but lacked sufficient DV and too low TWR for Munar landing Avoid over-building for the sake of aesthetics: Both Mark 1 and Mark 2 used parts that were overly heavy or unnecessary (but looked cool) resulting in poor performance. Ex: Too large batteries, capacitors, overly heavy solar panels Embrace design revisions: If something isn't working, don't be afraid to pull off the components and start over. Take the lesson from a bad design to make a better one. Design notes and photos for each variant shown below. You can also see more at my Imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/guguM Mark 0 - Prototype Mark 1 Mark 2 Mark 3 - Final Design

Seriously, you build the most amazing stuff! This thing is huge. That's the carrier from Star Wars Rebels, right?

PART THREE: Munar Station Mk2, Fuel Reserve depot, and refueling Spirit of Jebediah The final part of my Munar mission was to place a second habitat / refueling station in equatorial orbit. After finding a fatal flaw in the design of the solar panels for the Mk1 Munar Station, KSC determined that it was better to send a more advanced (ahem, fully-fuctional) orbiting station to the Mun. Sadly, the Mk1 was completely destroyed in an intentional test of super-low munar orbits (periapsis got down to ~1200m before hitting a mountain). Never fear! The KSC had a bigger and better plan: more fuel capacity, plus a secondary objective of orbiting a Fuel Reserve (i.e. unused fuel from a Heavy Lifter main/transfer stage that has about 12000 units of LFO remaining). The launch sequence was picture perfect (see below). With final testing complete, it's time to head to the Mun! Once at the Mun, the Fuel Reserve depot was placed in equatorial orbit (see below) Hello from the Mun! The last portion of this mission was to rendezvous the Spirit of Jebediah with the new Munar station, top off the tanks, and transfer some crew to the station. What's up next for KSA-01 Spirit of Jebediah? For the moment, it's back to Kerbin for this crew. It will primarily operate between LKO and the Mun, since it has just enough DV to do one-way trips and then refuel. But insights of this mission are already going towards a larger, multi-function craft to colonize Minmus and beyond!

PART TWO: To the Mun & Launching Munar Orbiter/Refueling Station! So my earlier "test ship" (after not playing KSP in months) went so well, I decided to take it to the Mun! Didn't capture the transfer itself (pretty standard stuff) but looks good in a steep inclined orbit (aka, I didn't get the equatorial orbit quite right and didn't want to re-do it). However... running on fumes when I got there, it was time for a REFUELING MISSION! Why not take advantage and make it an orbital station for Munar operations? More photos below: After some docking jiggering, dropped the engine stage and ready to refuel the Spirit of Jebediah. Docked, refueling, and orbital surveying completed. Now I think we need a lander mission!

PART ONE: Designing and launching a ship! Haven't played KSP in a little while, so I decided to build something simple to get back into space. KSA-01 Spirit of Jebediah Turned out very well: stable, good TWR/DV, and room for 6 kerbals. The design is a lot more utilitarian and asymmetrical than my typical craft. I was only planning this launch as a test run, but it went so well... I think I'll take her to the Mun next!

Being slightly obtuse and saying to myself "I wonder if 'The Copper Rule' and 'The Iron Rule' is from something, like a TV show or some reference?"... I hopped on over to Google and this is what I got: The Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) is a United States federal regulation which limits the concentration of lead and copper allowed in public drinking water at the consumer's tap, as well as limiting the permissible amount of pipe corrosion occurring due to the water itself. Lead and Copper Rule - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_and_Copper_Rule I mean, sure yeah 'Lead and Copper in Water = Bad' Not what I was looking for Google!

Because the game isn't gonna check what your thing is. It goes "Has user saved file? Ok yup, nothing to see here keep going" I thought I'd jump in, because I can sympathize with the OP, but at the same time understand the dev choice regarding attached/unattached parts. I've done it myself when I accidentally remove parts, quick hit save (but don't exit), then realize they're gone. Wait, CTRL-Z! I would assume in order to check for all unattached parts, the VAB editor would need to have an instance (or keep track of) of every single part placed in the editor at any time, which when saving/exiting/re-opening the parts are gone means it's only checking based on parts attached to the root. Otherwise, you'd have very hefty craft files with every unattached part lying around the VAB. So probably to combat bloated craft files, the game doesn't check whether parts are in the editor window when saving, only whether they're attached to root. Otherwise, making this function like significantly more robust 3D editors is probably not something the devs would (or even could?) do. IMO it's not really meant to be a 3D editor tool, the editor is just the minimum necessary to build a spacecraft, etc.

Just a quick note, I moved myself again to the bottom of the turn list. Unfortunately, no time for KSP (or really any games) lately. But watching the thread and hopefully moving myself down doesn't bug anyone!

Wondering even with HangerExtended, can you even make something in the game on Kerbin that height? 700,000 meters... that's a heck of a lot of girder pieces LOL

Not trying to be negative, but I'm not sure this is a fair statement. Squad is obviously a PC game development company (those familiar and who work with them could likely confirm) which as I'm sure you know is a somewhat different skill set than console development. A lot of the same under the hood, but still different overall and very time-consuming. Given limited resources of a small company, it makes sense to partner with another company who has the relevant skill set. Unfortunately, either FTE over-promised, or wasn't generally capable, or more likely that plus not realizing how complicated this game is when they signed up to bring it to console. The results were pretty bad, as we all know.

Thanks, @ZooNamedGames appreciate the update. For you (and the group), is there a thought to limit expansion on this station and perhaps open up a new station? Is the 396 part count considered high given the avg. FPS?

Going back quite a while in the thread quoting this here, but wondering if this "Starbridge" ever got built? Any imgur albums or anything on this one? @ProtoJeb21 Are you still around?

Not sure if this has been asked/answered already. Have you thought about making this an ongoing/persistent challenge?

Today I made a quick plane for the KSP Weekly "Crosswise the Sea!" Challenge . It went well. I completed the initial challenge. Then with almost half my fuel left, I decided to try crossing another ocean towards the north pole. I almost made it too... Careful use of the Whiplash engines and Mach speeds got me literally to the edge of the next continent. Actually in the dark (it was not yet sunrise) it looked suspiciously like the surface of the ice. I couldn't exactly tell whether I was over water or even where I was in the pitch black. I even put down my landing gears... Alas, it was not glacier.

My $.02 here regarding TT and their mods stance, if you look at a game like GTA which is very specific gameplay vs. something like KSP which is an open sandbox, it's comparing apples to oranges. KSP benefits from mods by users enhancing what you can do on your own (i.e. single player) whereas GTA mods impact gameplay experiences vs other players, which let's be honest in that game is all about pwning other players.

Thank you for your update. I'm sure everyone understands that life is the priority over gaming. And then when files don't work!

Thank you! I look forward to my place in line for adding a module. Really appreciate your response!

Hi all, just found this thread last night and super-excited to try my hand at adding a module. I'd like to go ahead and add my name to the Google docs list at the end. A few quick questions: - Do the modules have to be literally functional, or perhaps more "suggestive" of functionality? For example, making a non-MKS/USI "Waste Processing Facility" that doesn't actually process waste but just looks really cool? - I might have missed it in the OP, but is there a list of modules that are needed/recommended? Like a Wish List or a Road Map or something like that? Or is it just whatever we think would look cool / benefit the station(s)? - Is part-clipping frowned upon? Or is it go-to-town, just don't max out the part count?

Oh OK, so at an orbit of 8,000,000 meters (8000 km) the maximum apoapsis / periapsis difference is 50,000 meters (50 km). But lower orbits i.e. below 1,999,999 meters (1,999 km) the maximum difference is 100 meters. Got it. Also sometimes thinking between kilometers and meters unfortunately makes my metric-challenged American-brain hurt. LOL