Cavscout74

Had a little time tonight, and tested a new aircraft & a variant of an existing spaceplane Any guesses on what this is based on? Still in work, but flies reasonably well. Needs a bigger rudder/vertical stab though, the nose has a definite tendency to wander left & right. I was thinking the other day that the shielded docking port is pretty ugly on a spaceplane, and I wondered if I could modify my Lightning-series spaceplanes to use an inline docking port. It turns out, I can. I did a quick test to orbit in sandbox (where I only took a single screenshot - on the runway) and I have one building in career. I made a few tweaks after the test flight (moving the aft RCS blocks, adjusting the wing strakes to cover a gaping hole, etc). I'm not quite as thrilled with the looks as I thought I would be, but it works. I'll test docking on the career version as I didn't have a handy LKO anything in sandbox to try docking with.

YES!!!!!! Especially the 1.875m - at least make them match each other!!! Squad just needs to add functions of the Kerbal Alarm Clock mod to the stock game, which is pretty much what you are asking for. IMO, that is needed even more than a stock dV indication was. I agree with the battery idea, to be able to transmit in the dark. I like the dust experiment idea too, but I'm not crazy about the probe deployment idea. The whole reason behind them is to give kerbals something to do other than plant a flag.

Didn't have a lot of time, but I managed to get my Dres relay into polar orbit & the Dres lander safely landed - and perform a biome hop. Much better than my Dres rover that landed inverted a few days ago. Dres lander descending to land On the surface, antenna intact and pointing the right direction

That looks remarkably like several of my successes!!

Thanks!

I can somewhat understand using the same model for the 1 & 2 man varieties, but for the 3-man they really should have used a new model - something like the Soyuz descent module rather than a sphere. I also find it strange that the R-7 equivalent parts (RV-1 Cub vernier & RK-7 Kodiak) unlock as high or higher in the tech tree than most 2.5m parts.

Only I got a few things done in career this morning: My heavy mobile base found a large Mun crater finally, and scanned it for a contract At that point, a recovery craft was sent to retrieve the crew and give a pair of fresh pilot recruits some experience as well They all returned home to a nice picturesque landing: I also launched a crew station into LKO to be sent to Laythe in a few days. Nothing out of the ordinary but it was a night launch & I caught a nice sunrise as I was leaving the atmosphere Finally, I threw together & tested a new patrol aircraft. Relatively low tech except the science payload, powered by 4 Juno's in two underwing pods (B-52 style). Although as built it has higher tech equipment, none of it is essential to the design, so it can be quickly adapted to early careers in the future. It even includes a magnetic anomaly detector in the tail to search for submerged objects (ok it's really an extendable magnetometer & it doesn't actually work in flight)

Sounds like you don't have full control - which either requires a pilot or a probe core with power and a comm connection back to KSC. Only Jeb & Val of the first 4 are pilots. Edit: With partial control, you have 0 or 100% throttle & can only use SAS to hold or set one of the available cardinal directions (pro/retrograde, radial in/out, etc)

Thanks! Just going off the closest approach markers, the "successful" test had a closest approach of like 90 km. I'm sure if the first one had gone as planned, it would've been much closer. Just the fact that I can get an Ap above the target's orbit tells me I can theoretically get an intercept. I wasn't on much yesterday, but I may give it another try. At very least, I'd like to get within physics range of the target. I may have to add a recovery mod for the attempt though.

My Heavy Mobile Base 1 (HMB-1) finally launched for testing on Mun. It is the largest launch to date in this career, with a 5m core (with 5 Mastodons) assisted by four 3.75 Mammoth-powered radial boosters asparagus staged in two pairs. Munar transfer Entering Mun orbit The nicest equatorial ore deposit was of course on the night side, so landing was a little dicey After sunrise & finding a little more stable patch of ground It works good on flat-ish terrain, but in rough terrain like I landed in, the front section really sticks out too far. I may have to look into some changes in version 2. I think if I swapped the stock lab in front for a Planetary Base Systems lab on the top part it will work ok. I've never actually sent a large mobile base to Duna, but always wanted to - one of the first KSP videos I watched had a really nice one. Final pic after landing a crew, at sunset:

There is "Tracking Station Evolved" which overall improves sorting in the tracking station. It doesn't give the functions you are asking for, but it does break up objects by SoI - so you can at least only look at objects in Kerbol's SoI rather than having to sort through everything you have active. It also adds a search function. Currently works for 1.7.3, I'm sure it will get updated to 1.8.x in due time.

I have a few big launches counting down - a mobile Mun base and a single-launch station for Laythe. It gets boring time warping for days on end, so I did some more testing on an ASAT missile as well as reverting my Ekranoplan design back to where I started as the "improved" version had worse issues than the original. Test launch of the improved ASAT - longer booster, and the kill vehicle now has RCS for maneuvering. This was a test launch from a trailer off the runway just to see how it flew. I should probably ditch the fins in the future since it's meant to launch above 30km. I also launched a target satellite into a 72km orbit Then it was time to stick it under another CF-03A Phoenix. Due to the larger size, I mounted only a single missile to the lower side of the fuselage to ensure ground clearance. The first attempt went poorly - being off-center, the missile had enough mass & drag to make the flight extremely difficult. The zoom climb barely got over 25km and the missile never left the atmosphere. The trip back was fun - I got up to mach 4.75 before reaching KSC. I think the Phoenix might be able to break mach 5 if I had a longer distance to fly, and maybe a little more altitude - it was heating up the nose pretty bad too. For the second try, I moved it to the center line, and just offset it into the pylon a little. I also added a sepratron to ensure a clean launch - I didn't particularly want to smash the fighter to pieces at 38km. Take off was very gentle, just nudging the jet off the ground until I had a few meters altitude, then I could really start climbing. Breaking mach 3 even with the mass & drag of the missile Missile away! Of course, the actual target was well past me at this point - the first launch could have actually gotten somewhat close if it had gone correctly. Still, the missile got an Ap above 90 km & still had a nearly full RCS tank for maneuvering. The Phoenix reached nearly a 48km Ap on this climb, even better than the first try on Sunday. And Theodred brings it safely back to KSC. For such a high speed interceptor, it handles remarkably well at low speed. This whole experiment is nearly pointless of course - between having to jump back to the jet and land it before it gets destroyed by the game, the tiny chance of the missile & target actually colliding and finally the game actually detecting the collision with the high closure rate, the success chance is basically zero. But it's been fun to mess with just for something different.

Don't feel too bad, the reason I asked was from personal experience doing the same thing.

How not to land on Dres: How not to land on Eve: How not to send tourists to space: Not how a pilot wants to see her aircraft: A good landing: Hey, what's this button do?

All the experienced players started there too, and it was an amazing feeling when you succeeded in those first steps. Congrats!!!

I can't say for 1.8, but for 1.7.3 the stock legs are "iffy" at best. The medium one in particular seems to be a deathtrap to me. The small one is pretty bad too. The largest seems the least unstable. The best landing legs seem to be fuel tanks with friction pads on the bottom.

It only flies on 2, the nose engines are for takeoff and set to an action group to toggle on/off. And this has all been with an empty cargo bay. Also, I really think something got messed up in the design, because the very first design did "ok" - around 85 m/s on the turboprop at <20m, but it was hard to control - especially on the water. When I started trying to improve it, it started losing speed down low like something was dragging in the water, as well as the random splashes I see in front of me during low altitude flight. At 10m, it doesn't want to do over 60 m/s with all 4 jets running now. Oddly, it seems to handle flying over land better than over water. I "think" I still have the original design saved and I'm going to try reloading it and see how it performs. Edit: I found the original, and I was correct - it holds about 85-90 m/s on the turboprop alone at 10-20m above water, no random splashes like something invisible is hitting the water, no sudden loss of 30 m/s airspeed at 10m altitude. Something is messed up on the "new & improved" design. Its not simply a matter of the new design getting heavier - the old design is 73.16 tons and the new one is 75.75, and almost all of that is the second tail engine & nacelle Original design flying like it should - if it could maneuver in the water at all, I would be tempted to just leave it "as is" after all the trouble I've had "improving" it, only to come back to where I started

More testing & crashing. I first tried moving the tail turboprop down the the middle of the tail, then swapped it out with first one, then a pair of tail Wheesleys. I also changed to stock gear and adjusted the mounting after I got stuck trying to taxi back onto the runway after a successful (the first!!) landing on solid ground. Last flight on turboprop power: The tail Wheesley works better: First landing on land: Another change - dropped the wing tip water rudders in favor of a centerline strake & rudder. Works best if you lock the water rudder before water take-offs. First successful landing on land - got stuck trying to climb on the runway Upgrade to twin tail Wheesleys and taller gear Semi-final version - I was able to maintain this with just the tail engines for more than a few seconds. Granted, its much higher than a true WIG ship but I've noticed when I get lower, I start slowing significantly and occasionally see splashes like the game thinks some part of the plane is in the water

It was time for my Duna crew to head back to orbit & make an Ike landing Dawn launch After docking, they transferred to the Duna Crew Vehicle for the short trip to Ike and docking with the Ike Quad Lander. Landing, of course, occurred at night. I just didn't feel like waiting for dawn as I had another mission about to arrive at Dres. Soon after the Duna crew docked with the station, my Dres Remote Rover arrived & entered Dres orbit. All was going well till I jettisoned the transfer stage & discovered that the only reaction wheels were on the transfer stage - the rover probe core doesn't have any, and I didn't add any to the sky crane because I didn't realize they were needed. The engine gimbal was enough to land almost upright, but unfortunately it was on a steep hill and there was a slow motion roll followed by the scanning arm & main antenna bursting into dozens of pieces. The secondary antenna is intact, but useless until the Dres relay arrives in a few days. And obviously, there will be no roving in my immediate future with this: I also made the discovery that the fairings on engine plates don't keep kerbals out - my Duna engineer is pictured here inspecting the station's engine & RTG's inside the fairing. Ok, actually he's playing hide and seek with Jeb and found the best hiding place ever.

Dusted off an old high speed interceptor, the CF-03A Phoenix and decided to have some fun. In this case, it was an ASAT test: Takeoff with a pair of cobbled together ASAT's - small SRB, reaction wheel, probe core with target tracking ability, nose cone & fins Near Ap of my zoom climb - ~38 km, launching ASAT #2 (#1 already launched). I was aiming for a comm relay, missed with both shots (honestly, I never seriously tried to hit - no RCS for terminal course corrections), but #1 did get an Ap just above the satellite's orbit. #2 fell a little short, due to the nose being slightly below 90*. #1's path up & down was nearly a straight line, which was a first for me Returning to KSC after a mach 3 dash - took less than a 60 seconds from when I got turned to 270* and when I chopped the throttle to slow down Touchdown - the Ground Effect mod makes landings so much smoother in addition to the fun with WIG ships

If you are interested, there are a few mods that add functional airbags to the game (USI Exploration, SXT-Continued & I think Comfortable Landing). Both SXT & USI work pretty good at least up to 1.7.3 (I haven't jumped to 1.8 yet).

Work continued, as did crashes:

My Duna explorers arrived at the anomaly & investigated it thoroughly (kicked it) before heading back to the outpost, with a detour to the mouth of the eastern canyon for some extra science. After that, it was back to aircraft testing. First up was fine tuning my CF-06 Falcon forward swept wing single seater. I've got it just about where I want it, and it is going to be one of my standard small jets Then it was back to the beast. It is improving, but still needs a LOT of work. After the crash, the main engine was still running, and it looped around & nearly hit the fuselage

You aren't running out of power are you? The robotics can be pretty power hungry.

That is an interesting idea. The only thing more annoying than the "transmitted .0001 science back to Kerbin" message spam was the "couldn't transmit" spam. It could by default store enough power to send a single transmission, and using higher level engineers could increase that to 2 or 3 transmissions or something like that.