Kimera Industries

Took me a minute to figure out how to embed the video, haha...

It's not KSP, but I saw the Psyche launch live! My friend was shocked that SpaceX could land boosters like that and there is something so cool about seeing them touchdown one after the other. My friend said it's like concept art for the future where they show two rockets landing, one in the foreground and the other in the background. I agree. If you want to make this mission yourself, check this post out!

@Kerb24 Are you working on a design right now? Or later? I'd love to hear your plan for the plus-shaped solar panels if you have one. My best idea is to use a combo of the large/small static solar panels that unfold with DLC hinges, but alas, no sun tracking. Maybe a kOS script could help, or I could just bother with it during maneuvers while using the ion engine when it needs the most electricity. Originally I thought I could extend the panels with different length pistons and then I realized I could just make my own makeshift deployable solar panel much easier.

This is absolutely fine! As long as all requirements are met.

I got the Pravda I mission complete- coming soon. Turning off anti-aliasing fixed the problems I was having before, thankfully. (Stuff looks janky now but I'll get used to it)

Absolutely! Tell me what it is and I'll look at it. RSS is good, just swap Duna and Jool with Mars and Jupiter. If you have something else in mind, I'll look at it.

You ever heard the song from Turbo? About the super fast snail? "That chopper's fast, that chopper's fast, that chopper's really fast fast fast!" (I also saw the "conventional" bit just now. Nice chopper, looks good.)

Oh, that's a relief. Funding. always getting in the way of all those cool missions. Building supply rockets is gonna be cool, I wonder how mining will turn out. I think some dedicated action groups for mining parts + a simpler UI for resource transfer would be a HUGE help.

Just made a mission challenge to recreate the Psyche mission to asteroid 16 Psyche! Watch the launch live (hopefully) and do the mission yourself! The highest possible score is a Psyche-16 and a job incredibly well done!

The Psyche (sy-kee) spacecraft launched successfully on October 13 atop a Falcon Heavy. The probe will head to asteroid 16 Psyche, the largest metallic asteroid discovered so far. Psyche aims, among other things, to evaluate whether or not the asteroid is the remnant of the core of a planetesimal that had its outer layers stripped away, leaving a metal-rich asteroid behind. Psyche will get a Mars gravity assist in 2026 and arrive at 16 Psyche in 2029. Thanks to time warp, it shouldn't take too long for you! Here's how your KSP version will work: Pick an asteroid to visit. No comets. Launch your replica with a rocket of your choice. Rendezvous with the asteroid and gather as much science data as possible! Point scoring: Launch vehicle: Any ol' rocket Reusable launch vehicle Falcon Heavy look-alike (Central core with 2 boosters) Reusable Falcon Heavy. More details on recoverable Falcon Heavy: Psyche spacecraft: Any ol' probe Psyche look-alike Gravity Assists: No assists- I can do this on my own! Do a gravity assist Asteroid: Any ol' space rock Asteroid in orbit between Kerbin and Duna Asteroid in orbit between Duna and Jool Asteroid Encounter: Zeroing out speed Circling the asteroid Circling 3 times around the equator and once over the top, like so: Science: Transmit any science back to Kerbin Transmit any science, plus bring a magnetometer boom (or a modded part with similar function) with you. Psyche aims to figure out if the asteroid has a magnetic field. Scoring: 4-7 points: Mission accomplished. 8-12 points: Good job! You did a challenging mission! 13-15 points: NASA would be proud. 16 points: The Golden Psyche-16! Now that's a nice number. Best of luck to you, and may the Kraken favor your craft! RSS, JNSQ, OPM, and MPE are allowed. Ask me if you have a question. Here's the mission badge! 15 or less points: Maximum points, a "Psyche-16:" Yes, the solar panels follow the same color gradient as the official badge. See this PDF to see exactly what colors they are. This video might help with your replica:

Hang in there, guys! I wanted to do the Pravda mission, (yeah, that's the name of the orbital surveyor) I really did, but then, well, Mars rovers happened, and I wanted to make Pathfinder, so I worked on Sojourner, and long story short I discovered several glitches. Rest assured, Joe was duly compensated for his sacrifice.

How about an asymmetric helicopter? For an extra challenge, I'll make this stock. Airplane Plus' wonderful engines would make it too easy. (With the dlc, of course.)

I agree with everything you said, just wanted to hopefully excite you by reminding you that we will be able to build craft directly in orbit via orbital colonies The capability to assemble in orbit without needing to launch will be really interesting. I wonder how the game will calculate this, like if there's a set cost per ton or something, or if you get to test a launching vehicle on your own, and however many tons it gets into orbit and the cost of the vehicle is used to calculate that. Or, if the new science mode even uses money at all. It probably should, but not like KSP 1 did, at least. Perhaps when you have colonies assembling vehicles with their own baby VABs (I actually wanna see a tiny cute VAB now) you manage local resources, not money. As far as orbital colonies go, O'Neill cylinders, anyone? I don't think farming/greenhouses will be crucial to gameplay, because KSP doesn't really do life support stuff. It's probable some centrifuge pieces are coming, and I think a good justification for a part not "necessary" to space travel would have a different benefit, science. Science in KSP 2 is probably gonna be focusing on long-term data more, as simply getting a temperature report is... well, boring, but also one of the more unrealistic aspects of KSP science. Having a centrifuge onboard a craft could give data like, "Gravity Ring Report #3, 2 Months of usage: "The artificial gravity makes life easier, and more fun. Don't tell Bob it was me who pushed him down the tunnel to the centrifuge." Or something like that. Greenhouses could also give data for plants in space worth science as well. Just as long as it's long-term data that accumulates. Perhaps different categories of science should be called for- after all, in KSP 1, science is used to unlock new tech. Greenhouse and Centrifuge data would give you more "Life support" points, to get more related parts of that category. (Even if Kerbals aren't dependent on them for their lives) Thermometer data gives you heat shields and radiators, and crew reports get you more advanced cockpits. A preliminary planetary base, (Maybe a Martian style HAB) gets you better colony pieces. Then again, that might make things overwhelming and complex, but it would be fun, right? Technically, in KSP, an interplanetary spacecraft only needs Kerbal "storage," (as simple as a bunch of EVA seats,) fuel, and an engine. And yet, time and time again, players add gravity rings, extravagant accommodations for their crew, and overly complex mechanisms. Why? For the same reason you might build a fancy bedroom or toilet in Minecraft: a touch of realism, accompanied by something maybe a little goofy, functional, and aesthetic, too, has a strong appeal to it. That's what KSP is all about- realistic, funny, (when it needs to be- wobbly rockets have no novelty to me), and cool-looking. Forgive me if I got a little long-winded, this spacecraft has a lot of wind in his solar sails...

Thanks! This plane didn't show up in any of my searches, nice job.

I completely agree, this feels like a good, useful solution- of course, in-game testing could say otherwise, but it seems like it would work well. As far as docking port rigidity, I feel it should be the same as with the rigidity of parts attached in the VAB, if a fix like this is implemented. After all, the ISS and other stations don't wobble, just like how irl rockets don't. Those big interstellar ships seen in the trailers, probably assembled in orbit with docking ports, are gonna suck if you fire your engine and get a bowl of spaghetti. Please don't do something like autostrut if but for the simple fact that it gives me anxiety to make sure I got every part.

Discovered what seems to be the Panther engine irl today. What plane is this?

Perhaps the game could have a new vessel state, like instead of "landed" or "flying" it's "floating at x altitude." It would stay at that altitude even if you leave it there.

I love them all, and I get oddly attached to them, making up relationships and stuff as I go through missions. That being said, I like Bob the least. Not dislike, just like the least. Jeb and Val are useful as pilots, and Bill has fixed his fair share of ships. (Mostly just removing used/unnecessary parts to lose weight and gain dv.) I still use Bob a lot, though- he allowed me to get over 4,000 science points from my first Duna mission. Very close to Bill in terms of how much I like him, surpasses him by a little bit in his usefulness. And while the pilots are technically the least useful since you can just use the fly-by-wire hub to get the same effect, what self-respecting ksp player makes a mission without one?

Update: that Duna mission went well. Lotta science points from the research. Speaking of research, up next is a Minmus orbital surveyor, followed by a MISE equivalent of Apollo 8: putting a Korolev craft around Minmus and back. If you think seeing the kerbaled mission first would be better or more fun, lemme know. I'll gladly change the schedule.

Well, I was on vacation for a week and didn't feel like making anything for Wrong Red Moon, 'cause it was my break, you see. Didn't want KSP to feel like something I have to do as a chore. Instead, I got more involved with my science save, and as I mentioned before, I did a Duna mission (my first!), and suddenly my thirst for the red- okay, reddish orange- alright, reddish brownish orangish with white polar caps- planet could not be satiated. Immediately, I began working on a massive space station with a purpose similar to the Hermes of The Martian: ferry Kerbals around the Kerbol (Kerbolar?) System. Naturally, I named it Mercury. (The Roman Hermes.) With nuclear engines, it has dv of around 5000 and a twr of- well, they're NERVs. What do you think? Using an inflatable heat shield and retractable radiator + solar panels to aerobrake, it can carry up to 12 Kerbals, unless you count the centrifuge, which is made up of Mk 1 crew cabins. Ah, yes- the centrifuge. I came up with lots of ideas for it, eventually realizing if I connected them (yes there are 2 rings because torque sucks) in the middle with docking ports and another motor, it worked much smoother, happily spinning along at 4x time warp no kraken, and the ship could turn while they were still spinning (not at 4x time warp though). I launched all three modules last week, (habitation/command, centrifuges, and propulsion) and I made my own "heavy" launch system for them. Turns out you can't make one of those without it turning into the SLS. (Gee, I've never used the Mamoth engine before, let's try it, and oh, those fuel tanks would look better in orange, and do I have the Clydesdale, I do, no, it's too big, oh well, Pollux will do, besides I like the nosecones for 1.8m the best...) The centrifuge was an entirely different affair, as any fairing accommodating the outsize shape causes the center of drag or pressure to be above the center of mass, so it had to be launched on the bottom of a custom-built rocket. Much tears and frustration there. After Mercury was built in LKO, I used a resupply craft I designed for nothing else but to fill M's fuel tanks. (Drained in the VAB to save weight during launch, my Not-SLS ™ only gets 50 tons to LKO.) Next, I will choose which lander I want to use for the trial mission (to Duna, naturally) and a crew. I did build two reusable Duna descent/ascent ships beforehand, one of which could get a precision landing using smaller rocket engines to translate. Probably gonna go with that one. Next, probably a small deployable science base or a rover. Still stuck on a rover because of one simple thing: the cockpit. Do I use an airplane cockpit? The MK 2 inline looks nice, but how to handle the ends? Leave them bare or cover them up? With what? And it's too big! Should I use the only designated rover cockpit in the game? I just wish I had the one from KSP 2, it looks so cool... Seats on a structural panel, Apollo-style? Do I use a helicopter cockpit from Airplane Plus? Install a new mod entirely? Questions, questions! Speaking of which, any cool rover mods?

Not gonna lie... That sounds like something by ChatGPT...

Keep working on it! Looks awesome and I can see the hard work put into each one. I recently started doing something similar, I can definitely understand how you feel!

Turns out I had no worries, I seriously overbuilt every aspect of this mission. I was able to brute force a transfer to Kerbin, circularize into orbit, and even land very close to the KSC! Strangely, I couldn't transfer any of the science from my lander to my Mk 3 command pod, but due to the lucky choice of using the soviet style- pods on my lander, (it was the smallest option for 3 kerbals) I could just decouple the rest of the lander since that's a built-in feature of those parts. It also had the parachutes for Duna descent on it, so any extra weight during reentry could be handled. Turns out I still didn't need those parachutes, and I got over 4,000 science points from this mission! (I got science whenever I could, from whatever scenarios possible, and also hopped into a different biome with the lander.) With the new parts I unlocked, I decided to make a recreation of the ships of The Martian. The Hab: Yes, you can EVA inside of the fairing- kinda pointless, though. The Rover: the "windows" are an abuse of struts. The MAV: Actually, this one turned out flippin' awesome. The Hermes: Kraken bait/ lag machine. Making the Hermes alone has given me a strong desire to just download a mod for those parts, and I haven't even built anything past the centrifuge... Anyway, yay for my first Duna mission!

Well, I guess I've been watching too much Matt Lowne lately cause I finally got it together to do a Duna mission. Already at several hundred science points, and the lander hasn't even gone down yet. I used the Trajectories mod to help me out with aerobraking, really neat, and better than doing 5 or 6 airbrake attempts blindly. (It was the lucky #7 that got me into Duna orbit) Got some neat screenshots. My one concern is, well that's a lie, there are two, 1. Can my command pod hold all my science, and 2. Will my nuclear stage have enough dv to return to Kerbin? Hoping for some leftover liquid fuel from the lander to refuel, but who knows? Time will tell the success of my mission.