troyn123

Just FYI for you all: You can't successfully aerobrake on Kerbol. I tried. It was much more of a lithobrake to zero.

Coming in for a Mun landing, pretty routine for me at this point (I've played WAY too much)... But carelessness breeds mistakes! My approach to a big crater was a little too low and I clipped the rim of the crater, managing to destroy the bottom half of my ship. Pretty much only the capsule survived, no RCS. However... That impact + explosion boosted the capsule up. A quick look at the map, and I was on a very eccentric and sub-orbital trajectory. :-| I EVA'ed, grabbed the science from the pod and all the remaining sensors and watched the pod crash into the surface HARD as I used the EVA pack to boost Jeb's periaps high enough to avoid the ground. Just had him hang out in a low orbit around the Mun until I could mount a rescue operation. :-P

I've tried a couple times... Using the rotating parts in the Infernal Robotics package, I tried making a paddle-wheel... It topped out at around 2 m/s. :-| http://i.imgur.com/PY6a4xL.png My catamaran worked pretty well, once I added a tiltable hinge to change the pitch of the engine (to keep it from nose-diving). Still only tops out around 23 m/s, on land or in the water though: http://i.imgur.com/ztA8L5Y.png http://i.imgur.com/YqX2SF5.png My first attempt at a kethane mining submarine was a huge failure, it sank like a rock: http://i.imgur.com/5gYMEDh.png But the second attempt actually works! http://i.imgur.com/eUNhQrr.png I've seen a handful of designs that use backwards facing air intakes on the bottom, they have a high crash tolerance (80 m/s I think) and seem to be buoyant. That keeps it from blowing up as it slightly bounces in and out of the water...

Some of you guys are seriously ridiculous... I love it.

My biggest "ship" could technically be my Jebrock space station, when I dock an engine to it: If that doesn't count as a ship, then it would likely be my orbit-assembled base builder. Inside the fairing is a bunch of components for building a self-sustaining Kethane mining base. First is in transit, second one is after landing and deployment: Smallest ship, aside from just simple probes of course, would likely be my Ion Fighter: Or my small orbital bus SSTO. Works on Kerbin and Laythe:

During my first several attempts to land on and return from Laythe, I was so excited that I forgot a few things... Attempt 1) Beautiful transfer to Laythe, got lucky with the other moons providing some gravity assist... Ran out of battery, and ended up kind of getting pinball-machined around the moons until it was eventually flung out into space. I ALWAYS stick an RTG or solar panel somewhere, and forgot this time. Attempt 2) Add power, repeat mission... Nice gentle aerobrake at Laythe, coming down to land gently on a fairly flat beach, lower the landing gear... Landing gear? What landing gear? :-| Managed to either break the engine off every F5-F9 attempt, or just fall over and be unable to take off again. Attempt 3) Add landing gear, repeat mission... Beautiful landing!! EVA to plant a flag, and watch Jeb fall about 5 meters onto his head. Forgot a ladder... There's Jeb, standing right under his ship on Laythe, thoroughly stuck, literally just meters from his hatch! Attempt 4) Successfully got there, landed, planted flag, liftoff, rendezvous with the ride home... Parachutes snapped off on the descent. (This was prior to the joints being a little stronger) I have since then managed to build a very successful, reusable space program on Laythe (using Kethane tugged in from Bop)... But it was a long road getting there!

I found that by right-clicking on the parachutes, lowering the "minimum pressure" and "deployment altitude" as low as they can go (.01 and 50 meters), you get a lot more drogue-style slowing and simple atmospheric drag before they crack open. On top of that, by adding another set, and setting the deployment altitude the next step up from lowest (300m), you can greatly reduce the opening shock of all the 'chutes opening at once at higher altitudes and speeds. It's the only way I've managed to land of my more wonky structures, prior to the joint strength update in 23.5!

Thanks for all the responses... You are all quite wonderfully ridiculous. :-D

Wow... You guys are awesome. :-D

Patience, mostly. :-P I used the new grabber thing to basically put a really well-aligned large docking port on the asteroid, and then just kept swapping out fresh, large fuel tanks with LVN engines until it was where I wanted it. Initial capture around Kerbin was done with a pretty lucky atmosphere brake that left the apoapsis roughly at the level of the Mün, a lot more burnin' to get it to the right inclination... That was actually the slowest, hardest part. Then, relatively small amounts of delta-v to get it captured around the Mün. From there I inched the orbit down just a couple hundred meters at a time from around 8k, fast forward through an orbit to see if it hit anything, repeat. Even with fairly low torque, I was still able to get the asteroid turned around during a single Mün orbit for another burn in order keep the periapis and the apoapsis pretty even. I had to reload once or twice when I "found" that tall peak where I later ended up parked the viewing lights. ;-)

The Kerbal Attachment System add-on (KAS: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-2-kas-kerbal-attachment-system-v0-1/) includes fuel pipe ends that you can attach while on EVA to connect components that are reasonably close together. Not necessary to transfer fuel around the asteroid, but made it slightly more realistic for me. :-) (and it was fun!)

I think I just got a couple of gray hairs, just thinking about the immense burn-times.

Title says it all... What are you currently doing with asteroids? First I built a space station: Then I was screwing around and put a 1200 tonner into the lowest stable equatorial Mün orbit I dared, my Münraker, complete with ground spotlights to shine on it as it goes by!

Truly epic.. I love the little, very well thought-out (and likely tested to death) details of the crafts. The interlocking kethane mining modules, still balanced enough that the main craft flew straight. The 3-man rover, with the funny external seat. Even down to the 2-stage parachutes on the return capsule, dropping off the 3-man pod first, then rotating to open the 'chutes for the 3 1-man pods... LOVE IT!

Do you happen to have any plans for a continuous build, or even just pushing to github more often? Looks like the last commit was 9 months ago (https://github.com/sirkut/InfernalRobotics), but you're obviously doing stuff now. :-) Side note... Before the ARM patch, the KAS and Infernal Robotics mods are what kept me playing KSP!