What did you do in KSP2 today?

[Socraticat]

 

[herbal space program]

I finally got around to finishing all my Jool 5 landings with my big interplanetary space station, seen here inbound at the beginning of the mission:

First up was Laythe, the only landing destination for the big Mk3 space plane:

Next up was Tylo, with a beefy, SWERV-based 2-stage lander:

The upper stage did the better part of the ascent back to orbit, docked to the mothership, refueled, and served as a single stage lander for the other 3 bodies:

Vall:

Pol:

Bop:

After Bop, I re-docked the space plane to the mothership in a Jool orbit between Tylo and Bop, and then jettisoned the now empty center stage behind the truss structure. The remainder has something like 4 km/sec total dV if I exhaust all the methalox in the mothership and then dump it to go home with just the two landers docked together:

That's probably enough juice to make a side trip to Duna or Dres on the way home, but I haven't decided about that yet.

 

[sleepy_eb]

I made a drone ship for deploying small relay satellites throughout the Kerbol system.

System wide Kerbnet here I come!

There is a cartridge of 16 relay satellites (ion), as well as a whole bunch of deltaV on the drone ship (nuke)

 

Here one satellite is separated from the drone ship

 

fires up xenon/electric drive

 

deploying solar arrays, hopefully these will still be sufficient way out near Eeloo!

 

relay sat deployed

 

[Mikki]

I finished the weekly challenge, serious rocketscience for sure!

[Alchemist]

Welp, I managed to rebuild my HRO shuttle (it involved tons of yelling at VAB technicians. Maybe even more tons that the vessel lifts).

 

 

More details here:

 

P.S.  fun part about hardware - I was going to replace my 7 years old pc (bought it when KSP1 stopped properly working on 4 GB RAM), but after comparing it with what's for sale in the similar price range... I ended up replacing RAM and graphics card.  It was exactly "What do you mean I can plug this stuff in my old motherboard??!" (as for CPU, what's the point of more cores, if most stuff can't fully use the ones I have?)

Although, after getting the graphics card, I spent another week getting the power adapter for it. Even managed to buy a wrong one that looked identical, but did not fit.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Alchemist

[Wizard Kerbal]

Made an X-15 or something like it.

crashed it.

SPIN.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Wizard Kerbal
Well this was 18 hours ago so it still counts as today. Anyway, 5 minutes ago I just made my first KSP 2 Moon lander and as soon as it reached 70km it was deleted from existence. The screen cap was black, I don’t know what happened, I just . . . I don’t.

[Socraticat]

2 hours of raw footage from my first experience back in the game. The Mun mission was smooth, lost a landing gear on exiting warp... that was the greatest casualty. I need to work on the re-entry for this craft now so it survives when heat arrives.

My Jool 5 vessel is launched near the end. It's too big for the launchpad so it takes off from the runway. Steam told me the game was working at 15 ish fps, It felt a lot slower than that. It's in LKO now and waiting for further testing. I'm about to plug in and maybe I'll stream some later tonight.

Oh yeah, and Bob freaks out again around 1h 30min.

I don't know what causes that animation, but it's hilarious.

[Socraticat]

Just kidding. Orbit line is gone again. Guess the Jool 5 mission is off again, and the beehive is likely to be angry. 

Instead of streaming I'll be spending my night in bug reports, dreaming of hotfix summer.

[Mikki]

19 hours ago, Socraticat said:

Oh yeah, and Bob freaks out again around 1h 30min.

I don't know what causes that animation, but it's hilarious.

Given Bob being  a scientist his behaviour isn`t all that questionable.

Way more questionable is the aircraft he has been strapped on.

Please consider a review of your engineering ethic standards.

All the best so long!

[Socraticat]

42 minutes ago, Mikki said:

Please consider a review of your engineering ethic standards

"OneOscar" legal has already made a review of Kerbal transport standards and has concluded thusly:

Quote

 

Being that there is no heat or resistance to endanger the Kerbal's life; Being that there exists an argument such that view A(inside; cool and comfortable but not especially pretty) and B(outside; super cool and dangerous but especially gorgeous)

Being that "OneOscar" policy allows for kerbals to make voluntary decisions under the guidance of an invisible hand

"OneOscar" legal concludes that kerbals may choose to be seated in otherwise dangerous conditions (B) until new conditions need to be considered.

 

It's crazy, I know, but what am I going to do? Stop them? Bob's the only one worried. Nothing nefarious, I promise.

Besides, after the last update and failed Jool 5 test in LKO, legal sent the team back to the garage. I've been "filming" the new beefed up rover wheels. They are actually pretty awesome compared to what they have been since release. There's still some spots that sort of "catch" the rover (I swear there's a few regular spots on the runway). The best part is how responsive the suspension is, and how much better the wheels connect with the ground.

Somewhere in the VAB Bob is furiously wringing his hands over implementing a safe and consistent method to reach Minmus for shenanigans parties. So far... outlook vague... hence the handwringing.

[Socraticat]

Oh yeah, 

v0.1.4 makes serious progress on rover wheels. 

If anyone wants in on this it will be (and has been) an ongoing challenge in the KSP2 Challenge section.

This course is called "Garage-Tops"

I look forward to defending first place position should anyone care to challenge it!

[Mikki]

I`m doing the weekly challenge, Land on Vall!

Yeah , visiting Vall is expensive on dV, so i save some by plunging into Jool`s upper atmosphere. on the third try i met a proper altitude...

Edited September 3, 2023 by Mikki

[Alchemist]

Deployed a telescope. Caught a pile of bugs. Filed a bug report on all struts breaking loose.

A bit more detailed mission report here:

[TwoCalories]

I built a little Interstellar Ranger-inspired ship.

'

These screenshots are old, because later I added bigger fins to balance the rocket better.

Burning for orbit...

...and then I was struck by the disappearing orbital lines glitch. I wanted to test the VTOL capabilities on the Mun, but oh well. I'm too lazy to do the config fix, so I just deorbited the thing and tried to land it. Long story short, due to a badly balanced COM, I flipped engines-first into the atmosphere. The VTOL action group wouldn't work, but it wouldn't have been any use because it doesn't have enough TWR on Kerbin anyway.

Welp...

Also, Patch 4 seems to have helped out a lot. I accidentally launched the rocket without struts and it barely even wobbled! Well, it might have just been because the rocket was small, but whatever.

I'm going back to the drawing board on a convenient, VTOL, land-and-return-from-most-CBs, vehicle.

[Alchemist]

Went investigating options for payload recovery with a shuttle.

Found out 2.5 meter docking port can hold 40+ tons even on ascent by the side. that's good.

Practiced docking a bit. Wrote addition to a bug report on struts and docking. sounds not too promising.

There seems to be a way to dock the payload without completely borking the shuttle.

However, the payload loses its struts on deployment and becomes quite bendy...

Tried flying with it in such compromised condition.

Turns out it is still landable if I go gently about reentry.

Don't pay attention that while troubleshooting the main gear (half of them got stuck!) I ended up touching down on a taxiway... and forgetting to deploy the nose gear... and sliding off the taxiway as well.

Also, intakes somehow decided they are in the payload bay and I had to open the front section in-flight to ignite the jets

 

I'm not so sure anymore if this still is Heavy Recovery Orbiter or if it has evolved into Huge Ridiculous Overkill

[PicoSpace]

Tested a Lander for future Duna Direct / Eve Direct Scouting missions for future colony base locations.

(oh and a lot of editing of KSP2 videos today).

[Mikki]

Finished the Weekly Challenge, "Explore Vall"! Hellride, Yeah!

[NexusHelium]

28 minutes ago, Mikki said:

Finished the Weekly Challenge, "Explore Vall"! Hellride, Yeah!

Not bad man! That's a great looking ship too. I always try to make my ships look pretty whenever I travel which... may explain why it takes so long for me to go interplanetary. The kraken is no joke...

[Mikki]

37 minutes ago, NexusHelium said:

Not bad man! That's a great looking ship too. I always try to make my ships look pretty whenever I travel which... may explain why it takes so long for me to go interplanetary. The kraken is no joke...

...I usually build as tiny as possible, still all the small stuff adds up to humongous crafts on the launchpad but i can get them up without much pain...   i know lot of ugly tricks, i.e. i use pairs of vernor engines on large vessels facing fore and aft to finetune my maneuvers, angling solarpanels and so on...

[Socraticat]

Here's a cool shot from a doomed mission. This was going to be an exploration of Vall, maybe a return. Turned out to be a return to the VAB.

The tanks on the side are docked. Each side has two stages to drop. It works great if it actually worked, but it completely broke the maneuver node planner. Once the last segment was docked the vessel read <400 DV. If I made a prograde maneuver it would send me into spiraling dive... I fiddled with settings. Same result. I scrapped the planner.

Spoiler

I knew I was in the window for Jool so I picked a spot that had worked in a previous rehearsal and went for it- I was on an intercept for Jool in no time. There was no inclination marker despite having Jool set as a target, so I tried to correct a polar intercept into an equatorial one by sight- after burning up one set of drop tanks I staged. 

Two things happened at this point- 1. I noticed that there had been no change to the angle of the intercept despite having burned a few 100 DV. I chalked it up to a poor spot (maybe the inclination node was farther away than I thought) 2. After staging, the DV readout was something reasonable- in the thousands as was expected and utilized for intercept.

It wasn't until Jool intercept that it really hit me... The engine was burning full throttle- full plume, great audio, DV readout dropping- But the actual velocity of the vessel would remain unchanged. It really was a bummer. I had fun docking the vessel together and trying a drop tank method for polluting deep space.

Long story short, I'm going back to the VAB. The bug report forum is a mess- not because it's not being curated and worked on, but rather because it's flooded. It's difficult to navigate through what feels like the debris of promised greatness... it's also difficult to add extra buckets to the pools of kerbal tears.

I'm going to make something basic and One-Way. Return trips and multi-vessel continuity is still absolute Kraken-Bait for patch 4. But the part's manager is way better now, so that's nice.

[Socraticat]

Going back to the VAB was way better than moaning and complaining about how I didn't get what I wanted the first time. Still, I feel like the Kraken literally rode with me the whole time. Like, we're pals now...

Notice the Jenga style stack that took me to this point... thank goodness for gimbal. Like balancing a broom on your finger at every maneuver.

Val on Vall with her Vehicle, "Little Dragon". I'm right by the Lake- It will be easier to see in a video.

And that's about as far as the fun went. Not long after I drove away the support vehicles experienced catastrophic failure/ AKA Kraken Attack. Guess that little guy that followed me finally got hungry.

The rover wheels are simply fantastic. Having said that, so far the least "buggy" mesh to drive through/over has been the KSC garage. Everywhere else on any celestial seems to have hidden crevices, bumps, hooks, and hydraulic flippers that make continued rover use rather frustrating.

Still, I had fun.

[NexusHelium]

5 hours ago, Socraticat said:

Going back to the VAB was way better than moaning and complaining about how I didn't get what I wanted the first time. Still, I feel like the Kraken literally rode with me the whole time. Like, we're pals now...

 

No no no... You cannot be pals with the Kraken. It's just not possible. He will either resort to violence or give you the cold shoulder. There are no pals.

[NexusHelium]

Today (well, yesterday). I tried for a Jool V mission.

Unfortunately. While aerobraking, I miscalculated my orbit and accidentally landed on Jool instead of Laythe (The moon I was aiming for first.)

 

Poor Bill.

[Mikki]

On 9/7/2023 at 6:05 PM, NexusHelium said:

Unfortunately. While aerobraking, I miscalculated my orbit...

...and this is the point where i load a savegame and try again... i am no scientist just a casual fan of Kubrick`s ingenius "2010". Please go watch it if you don`t allready know this masterpiece and the main cinematic. It is epic.

[NexusHelium]

Actually I didn't really mind landing on Jool. It's cool.

I just feel bad that Bill will have no one to keep him company.

Well... Except for Ludfert...

...

Maybe I should stop Landing on Jool.

And I'm not a scientist either. I just research orbital mechanics in my spare time to understand KSP. Probably unnecessary but neat none the less.

26 minutes ago, Mikki said:

i am no scientist