What did you do in KSP2 today?

[Casellina X]

I unintentionally did my first rendezvous (and almost spelled it correctly too). I overbuilt an orbiter and decided to try and get a decent enough rendezvous with the remaining dV. Although I prefer the KSP1 UI in regards to rendezvousing (got it right that time), I much prefer the granularity the readouts provide. Even though it was a fluke I was able to set up an intercept with a distance of ~400 meters.

Now kith

When I EVA'd it altered the orbits slightly. I'm not sure if that's correct. But what was a virtually welded set of craft began to drift apart yet again. The intersections are ~30 and ~50 meters now. I'll leave them there until... probably patch 2 when I wipe out and start afresh.

 

After recognizing that I have a tendency to overcomplicate what should be simple, I've decided to do some intra Kerbin SOI operations with only SM parts. This craft should have made it to the Mun or Minmus without issue. 

[Scarecrow71]

In continuing with the historical space race, this morning I launched Explorer VI into orbit.  This ends the ret-con portion of the 1950s.

 

[Casellina X]

I believe I've finally encountered the Kraken.  Another quick orbital mission and spontaneous rendezvous. As I arrive on scene...

I don't recall which Kerbal is in there, but good luck to them. The recording didn't capture at the proper framerate, the spin was much more rapid than that.

[Socraticat]

I wanted to send a reminder to everyone that this thread exists:

I come to this forum for fun. There are great ideas here and beautiful minds. Some are developed and super wrinkly, while others are blossoming and learning- curious about the boundaries of possibility and imagination. I constantly hear how people who join have had a positive experience while visiting the forums and I want to give the community a pat on the back for causing that kind of feedback. Sometimes EA can be frustrating, and many people have shared words... Let them be words of understanding and encouragement rather than disdain or disgust.

I present to you:

"Tribute to an Invocation"

[Properly Edited]

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Socraticat

[Waifu Art Thou Romeo]

Just left the bubble around the solar system. Things get kinda weird out here. Like, my ship stopped following me the second I hit the edge. Onward and outward at 10% the speed of light!

So are all the other solar systems gonna be inside or outside of this bubble?

Edited April 2, 2023 by Waifu Art Thou Romeo

[Astr0Guy5]

Today marked the beginning of the Symphony of Stars: a musical mission to visit every celestial body purely to enjoy their unique sounds.  Movement I: Allegro Kerbolo will see the full exploration of the Kerbol System and began today with the Minticello I flight to Minmus.

Jebediah, Tim C., and Bob Kerman completed an Apollo-style round trip to the mintyest moon in the galaxy.  The mission experienced minimal dissonance; only one wrong note was encountered during undocking for the Minmus descent.  The command module undocked with such force that it was sent on a collision course with Minmus.  Pilot Tim Kerman easily restored his orbit and everyone had a good laugh about the incident.  Approaching Minmus, the crew was met with a low beating of drums, followed by the deep moan of a single cello. Violins soon joined swelling the piece to a magnificent climax and then falling back to the single cello.  After landing on the glassy flats, Jeb and Bob conducted the first EVA on another body, planting a flag and being blinded by the sun's reflection off the glassy surface.  Serene tones entranced them during their surface activities, so much so that they are unable to remember the details of their excursion and the music they experienced.  Drums and cello accompanied their redocking and escape from Minmus' SOI before they returned to the familiar sounds of space near Kerbin.  A glorious sunrise welcomed them home, and the crew of Minticello splashed down safely on Kerbin, not far from their space center.

Spoiler

Undocking for the descent down to the minty flats.

Flawless touchdown with home in view.

Saying 'goodbye for now' to Minmus and the doomed lander.

Preparing for reentry, greeted by a spectacular sunrise!

On final descent moments before parachute deployment and a safe splashdown!

Imgur album - Minticello (SoS in K major: I. Allegro Kerbolo)

Edited April 11, 2023 by Astr0Guy5
Photos uploaded!

[Little 908]

Laythe rover update: Midpoint

"Laythe Rover" shown in it's shell while testing on kerbin. (Test number 44)

 

This is so glitchy, so I'm surprised I got this far in the games buggy state

 

oh yeah, I forgot to mention this runs at a mind boggling 10 fps with over 350 parts!

Edited April 4, 2023 by Little 908

[Scarecrow71]

Continuing on with the Historical Space Race, I launched Luna III and did the first gravity assist around the Mun.  This now completes the 1950s.

 

[cocoscacao]

I don't know how many of you played The Neverhood ~30 years back, but this image gives me its vibe

[Casellina X]

Quick trip to Minmus today. Struggled to get the maneuver correct. The burn time didn't seem to match with what the trajectory showed. I wound up overshooting, having to correct the burn, then orbiting opposite. Trying to plot a maneuver to correct that went terribly. At the orbit reversal point, the maneuver target on SAS went crazy and kept swapping. So I had to manually get the orbit going at 45km. Managed to get Tim C. Kerman to touch down within meters of Val, who I had forgotten was out there. The image is a bit of a lie. I'm ~3m away when my original landing was ~12m. A few bursts and panic burns got the craft side by side. Short of easter egg hunting or assembling space stations, that's the Kerbin system comfortably handled. One thing I've never done is send some sort of rover. I may cobble one together and commission a DART-esque lander mission. I should get used to moving payloads around because I'm liking this nice... lake? as a potential launch location to get to other bodies with less effort. I forget that really tiny moon for another planet... that would be fun to launch from as well.

Launch by launch I'm overcoming my irrational dislike of leaving Kerbals somewhere out in the cosmos alone.

[Socraticat]

 

[stephensmat]

Made my first KSP2 landing on Duna.

 

[goldenson]

Did a test of the EVE Lander, landing on the ground and go to orbit from sea level successfully. Now I'm waiting for the release of patch 2, fixing the fuel line bug. Then I can optimize the lander and do a real return trip to EVE.

Launched a "Titan" into orbit, I know it didn't quite match the real one. I already try my best to build it but it's too hard.

[Little 908]

7 hours ago, Socraticat said:

 

Sorry I don’t speak early access

[Socraticat]

1 hour ago, Little 908 said:

Sorry I don’t speak early access

Don't fret, crew. I got you covered.

Translation: Bugs are Bad; game is still fun. If one wishes to enjoy Early Access, one must embrace the inevitable Kraken attacks.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Socraticat

[Scarecrow71]

And the 1960's are off to a roaring start.

 

[Whackjob]

All right.  Well, long story short, I've had a BRUTALLY BAD last few months.  I'm attempting to do five college classes this semester, work a job, and I've had multiple emergencies and tragedies happen.  I know what the Baggins meant when he said he felt like butter spread over entirely too much bread.  I don't spread good at all. 

So, I need a breather, so here I am.  I just bought KSP2.  I'm Linux, now, so I've got some tinkering to do so it runs buttery smooth, but I'll get there.  I've got the OBS so maybe once it all cooperates, I'll make a quick video of me trying and failing to build something big.

So here I am, at least for a little while.  Now, off I go to read optimize threads.

EDIT:  At least for the moment, the game is unplayable.  I get maybe three seconds per frame in the VAB, even before I add anything.  I thought it was OBS.  It's the same both in and out of it.  There's probably a solution already found somewhere, so off I go to find it.

EDIT2:  Ok, I have good FPS through a command line operator.  Now I just need to figure out how to move around the VAB again...!

EDIT3: MMB to go up and down.  We're not locked view-wise to a central core anymore!  I can move around!  This is already an incredible improvement.   Oh, there's a height cap.  That's not great, but I'll work around it.  If I can figure out how to click-drag stacks.

EDIT4:  Lesson 1 to myself:  The old truss cage system won't work as-is.

It bends and breaks.  Which... honestly, to be fair... is probably the way it should be.  The old truss cage was too powerful.  But, let's see if I can't improve it somehow.

EDIT5:  Ok, truss cage might work with some tweaks.  But every craft I've launched has broken and exploded, immediately.  Turns out the biggest engines in the game aren't enough for my stacks.  Well... we know where this is gonna go.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Whackjob

[cocoscacao]

Well, since wing tips are also procedural, I figured I could make 'em really thick, and just slap on the engines there. I call it the "bow tie design". The history will call it another useless attempt.

[Whackjob]

Curious!  In my initial baby-steps into KSP2, I've found a few things out.  One, the biggest in-atmosophere rocket motor isn't enough to lift a whole heavy stack of tanks as tall as I make it.  That means I'm gonna need to make motor clusters.  And TWO!  If rocket motors overlap more than just a little, the thrust gets BLOCKED.  So no clip-groups of motors!   Ok, that's just an engineering challenge.  So here's a test-group of 12 Mammoth-2 motors. 

So now the big questions are, one, how easy will this shear apart?  Two, compression stress, how far can I go?  Three, is 12 a stack enough?  Or should I double it?  Four, landing legs.  I'm going to have to see if I need to build landing legs again.  Five, is my college semester in danger?  Six, will I need mainsail seperatrons again, or their KSP2 equivalent?  Seven, is building big even a thing still?  Eight, how do I stop that splash screen that comes up the INSTANT a strut breaks?  I can't diagnose if I can't see!  Breaking things is what I'm here for!  Nine, VAB's tryna constrain me, I must defeat it.

Good news is the motor cluster appears to be good enough to hold together under a minimal load launch.  So the basics are there.

 

[Syvwlch]

Today I accidentally made a methane-delivery SSTO that gets 20 tons of the stuff to LKO with 2.5km/s of dV left over to deliver it wherever it's needed. I'm sure that's useful... right? 

In other words, while my first SWERV+air-breating jet SSTO made it to orbit, I massively overestimated how much methane the airbreathing engines were going to need to get me going 1.5km/s at 16km altitude... It was more like 4 tons than 24.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Syvwlch

[Little 908]

I think its better if you don't ask

nothing on the mission report it seems

Edited April 6, 2023 by Little 908
Oh yeah I made sure to name it "not flying safe"

[Starhawk]

I managed to get the Dubious 2 to orbit today.

The big tanks feeding the mammoths are almost dry.  There may still be enough dV to try a Jool 5 mission.  Maybe.

Happy landings!

[Syvwlch]

Kept noodling around with the SWERV+Whiplash SSTO. I'm at 5.5km/s dV in LKO with a 25% safety margin on the CH4. Reentry was very sedate, but the glide phase was not pleasant to fly at all!

The smaller H2 tank aft of the 5-seat pod launches empty. I need a spacer to push out the pod and counterbalance the heavier SWERV so the CoG stays in the center of the tank. The smaller tank weighs only half a ton empty: no other structural part is even remotely that light!

Tried using the payload bay nose instead of that massive nose cone on the side tanks because they look nicer and are much lighter, but they have so much drag I couldn't break the sound barrier with them on!

Next things to try:

• replace that heavy pod on the nose with an mk2 cockpit in line with the dorsal tanks... but not sure what to balance the SWERV with in that case?
• work on my stall speed and pitch authority after reentry... might try canards.

EDIT:

Switched to the mk3 cockpit instead, as I couldn't find a good way to keep a stable CoG without something heavy up front to offset the SWERV.

The canards, on the other hand, were a huge success. Take off speed is under 90 ms/s fully loaded, and when empty the glide speed can go down to 50 m/s with no ill effects. No change to ascent performance.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Syvwlch

[Little 908]

this game is unplayable is what i did today

[Syvwlch]

Spent some time fixing some thrust alignment issues with the old design (nose-up moment with full thrust in a vacuum exceeding torque available with command pod) while also trying to make it look good. Hit a weird bug where SAS would just gyrate around including on old designs in old saves until I restarted the game. Still haven't taken this design past LKO,

I really enjoy the tweak/launch cycle with SSTOs tho... it's very meditative in its own way.