What did you do in KSP2 today?

[magnemoe]

21 hours ago, rogerawong said:

It was really hard to build a lander that used chemical rockets to get the 4,500 dV - 5,000 dV needed to execute a landing and take off on Tylo. It ended up being a very heavy, single use vessel.

Going back to Tylo, I'm doing this instead:

  Hide contents

Use a swerv as the lander engine to create an SSTO lander with 6k dV. 

 

But the swerv has an bad TWR, now you could use it to kill lots of velocity so you are stationary 1-2 Km about target, better you could use drop tanks to get this thing to Tylo, drop them and do the burn. 
Or to quote an movie, all the moons are your except Tylo as it don't make sense to go there, except all the science. 

[rogerawong]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

 better you could use drop tanks to get this thing to Tylo, drop them and do the burn. 

If you want to get all the Tylo science with one crew, the lander has be SSTO so you can't drop anything you'd need next time around.

A swerv SSTO science lander has about  6k dV with a 3.00+ Tylo TWR:  enough to comfortably land, futz with the exact landing site a bit, and return to polar orbit to rendezvous with a refueler. It can do it!

[Casellina X]

Been intermittent in the new year.  I've only done small missions - suborbital hops, satellite launches, simple planes. I've been trying to approach things with a "story" in mind, attack things in a different way to how I've done in the past. I'm comfortable enough in the Kerbin SOI, so I'm just reinforcing some skills for when the missions take me beyond that.

I think this was my second launch of Exploration mode, admiring the sunset.

This must have been the third (some of these shots stretch back to early January, haven't had the oomph to post them). Pleased to see reentry effects implemented. This was 0.2.0 so heating was a little extreme at the time. Good on the team for adjusting that.

After unlocking the node on the Tech Tree I decided to put together my first plane in a while. Fairly stable flier and I put it together with science collection in mind.

Several missions later, I launched an advanced (time-wise, definitely not tech-wise) probe just to orbit. Thanks to the KSP Academy: Rocketry 101 video/stream, I've started reconfiguring my rockets to launch at a ~1.2-1.3 TWR. Previously I'd aim for a minimum of 1.6 - normally a bit higher.  Things just feel... so right now. I still have a lot of work to do on my gravity turns, but the TWR change has been a step in the right direction. I'm also trying to incorporate payload fairings more often in my designs. 6 months ago this would have launched sans-fairing.

Here's my "advanced" satellite. It probably has enough dV left to land and reorbit.

Back to aviation, I took a trip out to the Island. I don't appreciate that I had to download a mod in order to use a custom flag, and I really hope that functionality is incorporated into the standard game before long.

I took a second flight to the east and played in the clouds for a while.

Notice the slight redesign to include a ladder which doesn't work very well at all. Not long enough to get back into the damn thing from the ground, so I have to retract the gear to grab on. But then the ability to keep climbing ends at the top of the ladder, so the hand/footholds that lead to the cockpit aren't reachable. I have to use a combination of letting go and continue climbing and keep trying to regrab to get them. I think I was looking for the desert site but by the time I reached the edge of the desert I realized... I've never launched from there (in KSP 1) so I don't actually know where it's supposed to be. So I planted a flag to commemorate the exercise in futility.

Following another redesign to add parachutes because landing is a task, I went out to the island in the middle of Kerbin crater. I think I expected maybe a discoverable or something new to "science", but I didn't see anything after a cursory look. So I popped the chutes and landed. I was on a time crunch.

Next up should be landing on the Mun, and I'll aim for a different type of lander than I normally post. Maybe I'll incorporate some docking in the mission.

[Scarecrow71]

Continuing on with the latest campaign, all in an attempt to see if I can get to and from Duna without parachutes failing, I was able to complete the following missions in a singular launch:

• The Perfect Circle
• Lonely Satellite
• It's Eccentric
• Munar Signal
• Escaping Kerbin

2 of these require a probe core with antenna and solar panels, so I figured I'd send up a probe with enough dV to do them all.  By the time I escaped Kerbin's SOI (the last thing I did), I had 167 m/s of dV remaining.  Took far more fuel to land on the Mun in the right spot to get credit for the Mun Arch.  I originally thought about dropping a rover on the surface and driving it there, but I didn't have the requisite wheels to do so.  So I took my probe and landed on the Mun, having to do multiple in-flight-while-landing correction burns to get close enough  Burned more fuel than I wanted to, and as I'm ascending into Munar orbit after the landing I thought I wouldn't have enough to do the SOI escape.  Barely had enough.

The bummer part is that I wasn't able to open a whole lot on Tier II.  I've only got 4 nodes total open on Tier II (Medium Orbital Rockets, Medium Launchers, Enhanced Electronics, Atmospheric Science), and I opened 2 of them with the science gained from the last launch.  I've got 193 science remaining at the moment, and I have 1 mission I can run right away (Wheelin' and Dealin') which will get me enough science to unlock either Expanded Construction or Precision Aerydynamics.  With Atmospheric Science I can at least run that and get some points.

My next launch will be to put a probe in orbit of Minmus, followed by a landing and, hopefully, the Minmus Monument.  That there should get me enough science to attempt a Duna mission.  That'd be...4 total launches since campaign start to get to Duna?

EDIT:  So, can't do Wheelin' and Dealin' because, apparently, airplane landing gear does not count as wheels.  Even though they have wheels on them.  Sigh.

Edited February 9 by Scarecrow71

[Casellina X]

I decided to jump head first into the Mun mission. I tried for a wide lander when normally I go for a regular ol' tube with an engine.

Overkill quite honestly, but I couldn't quite get the stages worked out to get an orbit with no headache. This design works, it just doesn't instill confidence once you're a couple stages in.

In all its overkill glory. This is after the 3rd revert due to fussing with decouplers being in the wrong stage.

I surprised myself getting to a 70km+ AP and just had to hope I could circularize.

I managed to circularize and plot a maneuver to the Mun. Easy stuff from here... or so I thought.

As you may have noticed, some pieces are no longer attached. I think this was a combination of overeagerness to land in this particular Mare and either a bad TWR readout or improper planning. At any rate, I started my deceleration burn too late I guess. As I approached the Munar surface I had 170ish m/s of velocity to cancel out. Needless to say, that didn't quite happen.

Somehow Bob, or Bill, and the bulk of the craft survived the impact. I can't understand why, as this should have been the newest feature on the Mun. But I'll take the victory, complete the mission, and with the newly banked science build something  more easily landable. I really should get in the habit of using quick saves because this cavalier mission execution is going to end in tears by the time I'm getting out to Duna.

[Poppa Wheelie]

Today I visited the Duna North Pole.

Six days ago I landed on the equator, and have been driving north ever since, for several real-life hours each day.  Most of the driving has been pretty smooth, but some sections are tough.  The entire North Pole region was very difficult driving (and staying West enough to get enough sunlight for power).  Now I have to drive all the way back down to the equator.  Then I'll have to decide if I'm going to do the entire southern hemisphere as well (and complete an Elcano circumnavigation), or whether I'll just return to orbit once I reach the equator.

Here are a few highlight screenshots.  I'll publish a full Mission Report once the mission is complete.

Six days ago I landed this 3-kerbal rover on the Duna equator.

And started driving North.  Duna is really beautiful.

Eventually I arrived at the mission objective (spoiler).

Spoiler

I kept driving north.

Until I arrived at the Duna North Pole today.  When I was very close to the pole, the game suddenly told me that I could do South Pole science.

[NexusHelium]

I just got 40,000 ms/frame while trying to launch my mothership….

I’m starting to think this wasn’t the best idea with a GeForce 1080…

[rogerawong]

4 hours ago, NexusHelium said:

I’m starting to think this wasn’t the best idea with a GeForce 1080…

Framerate in KSP2 is rarely a function of your video card, and more a function of the highest clock speed your CPU can achieve with a single core. 

Pause the game -- if your framerate is suddenly much faster, then you know it's the CPU calculations slowing things down and not your video card. 

[magnemoe]

Reached the Duna monument but is double stuck. Orbital ship has 660 m/s dV left and lander with 1600 m/s dV is unable to reach orbit. 

Yes its not aerodynamic but 1600 m/s should be enough to reach orbit. Know I never thought of aerodynamic on Duna in KSP 1 only parachutes to land.
Has this changed in KSP 2?
Luckily I launched the followup and rescue mission before this one arrived. 
Looks like this lander is cursed, I guess the grinders are serious drag makers, tried various speeds but nothing helped, was still over 300 m/s short at the best. 
I tested an even less aerodynamic lander and it reached orbit with a bit less than 1600 m/s.

Edited February 10 by magnemoe

[Casellina X]

Anyone else dealing with TWR readouts in the VAB not matching the TWR when out in the field? I just put together my rescue mission and once again wound up with sub 1.0 TWR when I was just about on the surface when the VAB told me something grossly incorrect to the order of 9.x? Even my first stage, the VAB had a TWR of 1.2ish but on launch I was around 0.9

[rogerawong]

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Looks like this lander is cursed, I guess the grinders are serious drag makers, tried various speeds but nothing helped, was still over 300 m/s short at the best. 
I tested an even less aerodynamic lander and it reached orbit with a bit less than 1600 m/s.

Yeah. Almost all those structural bits like trusses and girders are only fit use outside of atmospheric conditions, they are extraordinarily draggy.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, rogerawong said:

Yeah. Almost all those structural bits like trusses and girders are only fit use outside of atmospheric conditions, they are extraordinarily draggy.

Get it, now the other lander is this thing

On top of Duna Followup, I call intentionally not aerodynamic, it worked well. It has 3Km/s total with 1Km/s left after both Duna and Moho simulations. 
Other lesson learned an 80 m/s landing burn on Duna let you land relatively accurate, ignore heating issues and you can still benefit from parachutes so just benefits. 
Now getting the land 3 kerbals on Ike I,m sorry I did not had two rover seats. More so because ship has two stowaways.  

[The Aziz]

I encountered and reported a bunch of bugs

And Laythed a pretty picture

[hatterson]

On 2/9/2024 at 4:34 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

EDIT:  So, can't do Wheelin' and Dealin' because, apparently, airplane landing gear does not count as wheels.  Even though they have wheels on them.  Sigh.

Yea, the wording on that mission isn't great. I spent several minutes figuring out what I was doing wrong and seeing if I could pin down the "bug" before realizing I was just using the wrong parts.

[Casellina X]

I sent 2 rescue missions for Bill. The first one was destined for failure at my ability level. I didn't think I would have had enough dV to land and return (although after finishing the second mission, maybe I would have). The only good thing that came out of the first mission was some extra science points banked to unlock another node on the tree. Did I need it... no, but it was gonna happen. I didn't actually expect success so the initial rocket design, launch and such I didn't capture. But I was able to get close enough to Bill to be comfortable.

Now, as you can see it wasn't the closest rendezvous in the world, but I figured I can walk it. But even better, why walk when you can use your EVA Jetpack? I was able to close 5km in short order.

Unfortunately when I got to Jeb and the return craft, the game had decided to push it over. Should have left SAS on. I tried an ill fated takeoff but I couldn't orient myself with the controls and that ended in failure. Had to reload an autosave.

Round 2 (3 actually - don't impact the ground at 200 m/s, it doesn't end well), with SAS, and we're all set to go. Although the game seems to have forgotten my custom flag.

Loaded, saved, ready to get the heck outta here.

Notice the excessive dV remaining. I need insurance on my missions.

Oriented for the circularization burn, and soon transfer burn. I was finally confident at this point.

Hurtling back towards a 30km PE.

I got to see some more reentry effects with a larger craft. I also decided to burn off that excess fuel because why not.

As long as the parachutes pop, the past hour or two will have been worthwhile.

Back on Kerbafirma. Hopefully the next mission to the Mun won't be such a hassle.

[Astr0Guy5]

After a rough week of studying and tests, I finally got a break and completed two missions. First, I completed my second Mun landing at a mysterious structure and Jeb did some investigation. Second, I deployed a small CubeSat in a polar orbit of Minmus to prepare for a crewed mission there. I'm still doing the easy beginning missions, but I'm honestly just enjoying the scenery and the process of each mission. Here's some funny screenshots with Jeb:

Spoiler

 

[magnemoe]

After doing science on Ike and finding the two discoverables its off to Duna, first rescuing Valentina from orbit its time to rescue Jeb from the surface just south of the monument and by chance I was just above it so release the lander and set up an burn. 
 
Lander had an small bug, the probe core was placed on the bottom of one of the fuel tank so it was the only part who overheated and exploded, this was an unmanned landing. 
Now SAS was still active and I could activate the parachutes, but being Duna I would still travel at 27 m/s on touchdown, but I had K2-D2 who had an landing function, who I have not used much but here it was able to land the craft, I landed less than 2 km from Jeb. 

Here is Jeb with the original lander who was unable to reach orbit because of drag, also the small rover to reach the monument. 
Lander tipped over on physic load but it was useless outside an shelter for Jeb. 

Here is there things get serious crazy, the second Duna landing involved an car chase, yes an car chase on Duna. The second lander had no probe core I could not activate the parking brake but it was not moving. But I had to leave and quit the game and on loading it started to roll. I noticed the distance did not decrease 10 m/s 

The chase is on has to get in front of it and brake. 

Got it.  Yes it has an extra seat for rescuing kerbals but during testing in sandbox the probe core was not on the bottom  
So yes car chases and intercepts on Duna, think its the second most crazy thing I done in an real campaign. 

First is back in KSP 1

Max Q at 7 g, hit Duna atmosphere at  4 km/s. Firebird one at hardbrake. Base is 50 ton dry, then an Duna lander and the tug. 

But the main question is how can that pancake lander with wheels be more aerodynamic than the first? 
This lander uses a bit less than 1600 m/s to reach an 70 km Duna orbit and it has almost 2.9 km/s dV. Medium planet lander, do Moho, Duna and Val. 
All the dV let me farm Ike dry in one run. Downside is that the mothership only have methane for 5 landings if lucky. 
Upside is that the 1.8 km/s left on mothership will increase as I use it up. It has chemical engines to use up reminding methane but its an long wait for the return window so lets do science. 

Edited February 11 by magnemoe

[The Aziz]

At this point I had a dozen tries at simple task. Send a ship to Jool. And it's not like it's something complex, remaining second stage of lifter and nuclear stage above it, making the ejection burn. Yet that somehow is impossible. I'm about to give up and leave the game until the next update with little hope that it will be fixed.

EDIT: I've managed. About 5 bugs during a single thing. Buuut the worst thing happened in the middle of another mission, which is almost funny.

Edited February 11 by The Aziz

[JavaSaBr]

I have built my first science space statin on Mun orbit

 

[Urus28]

I spent most of my time designing a small seaplane. My biggest problem was to exit kerbals from their chair...

[Scarecrow71]

Finished my Minmus landing near the monument, which completed that Mission.  Oddly enough, Minmus' gravity is so weak that it allows for a lander to sit upright on extended solar panels.  After, of course, sliding down the crater wall on 2 landing legs.  Weird, but I'm not complaining.  Much.

Anyhow, I've got about 1/2 of Tier II unlocked, so I can work on getting to Duna.  The lander from the Minmus mission had radial Mk16 parachutes (2) and radial drogue chutes (4)...and they all opened through normal staging.  Perhaps this bug is now fixed?  Either way, I'm going to get the keostationary orbit and fuel tank missions out of the way (another 335 science) so I can unlock one more node on the tree before heading to Duna.

[Casellina X]

I launched what ideally will be a decent transfer tug between Kerbin and its satellites. I want to launch the next series of missions as lighter weight payloads and shuttle them back and forth using this. It has 2900ish by itself, we'll see how drastically that changes when I hook something else up to it. I may just attach it to another one of itself and see how it handles that. Next mission is the arch but I may get my plane back out and run some atmospheric experiments first.

 

[Casellina X]

Back at it again and I took the plane out like planned.

I guess I didn't save the version with parachutes but at any rate, I was able to collect from Grasslands, Highlands, Mountains, Beach, Water, Ice, and Desert. It has pretty good range.

This was the longest flight I've ever taken. First time reaching the arctic, and intentionally at that. This shot reminds me of my most recent trip from West to East US coast, seeing the terrain slowly transition from greenery into snow capped mountains.

I was treated to a beautiful twilight hour in the north. I circled back around for a landing and sample collection...

... and stuck the landing. All I could do is wait for the smoke to clear and hope P.A.I.G.E. wasn't waiting in the wings.

But we made it through. Flag plant with the proper image this time around. I left the wreckage there for some future follow ups.

Next I tackled a compact Mun lander to be used with the tug from the previous post. This was supposed to be a quick launchability test - see if there was any flipping or instability. It wasn't until I was about to set up a circularization burn that I realized all my orbit lines had disappeared. So I couldn't set up the docking phase.

At any rate here was the separation from the orbital stage, and then a quick deorbit to see how it would handle heating. It should be manageable.

 

After landing I reverted to VAB but unfortunately still no orbit lines. So I might be stuck for a bit.

[Superfluous J]

Doing a fairly restricted version of Kerpollo, I've found just how little Science there is in Kerbin's SOI, especially when you do no missions and restrict yourself to a single region on both Mun and Minmus.

I was able to unlock all of Tier 1 in the tech tree, but in Tier 2 (after that first entry node) I could only unlock 1 of the first 4 nodes. It wasn't a hard choice, luckily. Fuel Lines are more important than everything else in that tier, even accounting for the fact that the node costs more and only has them in it.

But it's funny that I can't unlock a 2nd science instrument with the points I got from my first 3 missions (LKO, Mun, Minmus) so must avoid Duna on my first interplanetary launch (because with an atmosphere, I want to be able to do the atmospheric science before I go).

[JavaSaBr]

Continue my crewed mission to Gilly surface

 

Edited February 13 by JavaSaBr