What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Gods315Pawn]

I've been doing a lot of science!-ing. I sent Munbles Kerman on a double-landing Minmus mission. He came back with a hefty dose of science! I want to say about 700. Not sure. Then, having unlocked the Gravioli detector I sent a ship piloted by Bob to swing round the Mun and then head to just outside Kerbin's SOI doing a lot more science. Currently, he is past the Mun. I think I have readings from "high above" and "just above" 4 biomes. Something like 8 or 9 sitting in my crew module.

Bob also did a few crew and EVA reports that it seems I had missed. With that science! I was able to unlock ion propulsion.

I then made an ion probe to try and make my first interplanetary voyage, but I seem to have broken my game. I cannot get it to load from the VAB or save the ship in the VAB.

That is my day so far. I will boot up my old lappy for another try here in a bit.

Edit: After getting back to it the same thing continued to happen. After a small bit of investigation I realized it was just that ion probe. I had named it Feanor because I planned to send it off into interplanetary space without bringing it back.

I decided that it was nothing other than the curse of Feanor. I deleted the craft and made a new, smaller one named Finrod. It worked fine.

For those that know what those names are, it is very likely that I want to be your friend.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Gods315Pawn
Update on the post

[PTNLemay]

Today I test flew my new stock space plane.

An 3.75m diameter space plane? Got any other angles? I want to ogle it from more vantage points...

[Roastduck]

Did a whole bunch of science today in Realism Overhaul

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Oafman]

Had a couple of milestones over the weekend.... got really comfortable doing eva in the vastness of space. Before it was not uncommon to take a Kerb out and screw up so bad that the ship is receding away VERY quickly.

After a crash landing on Mun with the only thing surviving is the pod, with Jeb inside... I managed to land a rescue ship 5k from the crash site, walked Jeb to the ship and brought him home. First successful rescue.

First landing of a probe on Duna, though it hit the ground hard enough to tip over... but I was able to collect and transmit science... so a successful mission!

And finally figured out how to rendezvous consistently. Done it before but it was usualy a hit or miss.

Wow you had a productive weekend! Kongrats

[Torquemadus]

An 3.75m diameter space plane? Got any other angles? I want to ogle it from more vantage points...

The Kerbooster Super Heavy still a proof of concept atm. I'll be taking more pics once I've got it doing operational flights.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

My preivous effort, the Kerbooster Heavy, is hauling regular flights to Kerbin's moons atm.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[mythic_fci]

-album snip-

You sir, are amazing. Can you please share that craft file when 0.24 arrives? I have a feeling my space program's gonna need it... BADLY. I'm also assuming you can mount any desired payload above the lower booster, where the Kestrel-Midbooster is mounted?

Back on topic, I built another few mini-spaceplanes while I checked the forums for any sign of 0.24

[Torquemadus]

I'm also assuming you can mount any desired payload above the lower booster, where the Kestrel-Midbooster is mounted?

The central idea here was I wanted a way to make a partially re-useable booster that could deliver practical payloads into orbit and return to the KSC. Stacking the payload on top made the most sense. Solid rockets are used as a cheap expendable "trash bins full of boom" first stage.

My experiments with recovering spent boosters by parachute weren't a great success. They tended to "mostly" survive landing, resulting in messy plies of broken-off parts. I'd been messing about with space planes, so I decided to see if a piloted recoverable booster was a good idea. My first attempt is shown below. As before, the Kerbooster could be used to deploy different payloads as needed. In this case, I used it to deploy my Kestrel space plane as the upper stage.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The Kestrel is mostly used for joyriding around Kerbin's moons.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Once 0.24 arrives, I'll be testing these designs further to see how well they fit in with the economics of contracts and recovery.

[magnemoe]

How practical is vertical takeoff and plane landing shuttle style?

Main benefit is that its easier to land at the spaceport for the 98% recovery bonus.

[Duke23]

Oafman, you should consider making a video when that convoy arrives at Jool. I'd definitely sit down and watch that logistical nightmare, lol.

Guess I won't have to worry about landing my plane now. Earlier we had a pretty bad storm and the lightning was striking close to my house and making my monitors shake, so I shut down my computer with KSP paused mid-flight in the background. I'm debating whether I'll try it again with or without changing the time I launch. I imagine it deleted everything since I was at about 18km and throttled up when I quicksaved.

[KerbMav]

It already amazes me how good some are at building spaceplanes, but maybe FAR just makes things a bit to realistic for my abilities.

Explorer III has received the three Tylo assist modules for the lander (more fuel and engines for the landing phase to be dropped before touchdown). All fits and is well aligned to not get atomized by the nuke-engines. Next up is refueling and getting some crewmen to accompany the Trio to Jool in some 150+ days at the next launch window.

Will launch a probe first and a bit earlier to map out some landing sites; which will also be my first test of the new ion engines.

Moho probe still on its way, Eve probe ready in a few hours to depart LKO.

Finally I am getting into it again, but I fear .24 will have to wait a bit longer for me.

[PixelClef]

So it did, in fact, work. I've manned the lab and sent the rover off For Science!

[Bishop149]

I installed some part mods, and found they pushed me over the RAM limit in short order after I started playing so I promptly removed them again.

Not THAT excited about the monetisation of KSP that will come with 0.24 but the 64-bit upgrade will be VERY welcome indeed.

[Oafman]

Oafman, you should consider making a video when that convoy arrives at Jool. I'd definitely sit down and watch that logistical nightmare, lol.

Actually, the arrival times are spread across around 30 days, so there will be no repeat of the frantic half hour where they all left LKO.

It's an illustration of how tiny differences in maneuver nodes and the execution of those nodes is magnified over great distances.

I'll hopefully put this all together as a mission report at some stage. But I've decided that I haven't sent enough silly vehicles (can you ever have enough silly vehicles?), so I'm building a few more things before the transfer window closes.

[Gods315Pawn]

Three hours (two hours last night till I dropped and one more this morning) designing an asteroid fetcher. So much trial and error just getting it into orbit and capable of rendezvousing. At least in terms of dV. The actual execution may require practice.

[Jon Tash]

I was going to continue and build Jump Beacons all over the system and use the Manned Jump Drive to go to Moho but decided to not play the game. I just don't feel like it right now. I will just be watching the episodes I've missed in the Interstellar Quest of Scott Manley on YouTube.

[Ravenchant]

I found out something beautiful: you can change the Kerbals' surnames through the text file, as well!

This will be put to good use in my next save

[Bioman222]

In career mode a managed a mun flyby with the Munar Orbital Laboratory and Education I (MOLE-I) (yielded about 165 science):

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[ClearlySane88]

Spent most of the day working on and the redesigning my Mun Station, again. I've also got to figure out how to get/move some of the heavier parts to dock with the station and then, later, get them to Minmus.

[DBT85]

Yesterday I built a capsule module and a lander module, launched separately, docked in space and went to the Mun. Good practise with my rendezvous technique and fun to launch more than single rocket to achieve a goal. First time I'd assembled something in orbit to go somewhere.

Before I tried that I was attempting to do it with one launch but with none of the largest parts yet it wanted to flop over.

Edited July 16, 2014 by DBT85

[Buckshoot]

In preparation to the .24 update i been collecting ships from the kerbal system. Yesterday i returned 12 kerbals from 3 science ships on Duna (around 3000 science) plus one science ship i had in laythe (5700 science). still 3000 science left for the interstellar warpdrive.

Now ill start working on reusable rocket models and collecting antimatter (3000 units overall already)

[Concentric]

6262. But first, testing for my Apollo-like.

My Apollo-like CSM and LM combined to mass 60.89t, and are here depicted atop my new 70t to LKO lifter, the FiveByFive. I basically followed my own instructions on a FiveByFive launch...

I deorbited the last part of the lifter (it had 334 liquid fuel left), and performed transfer with the CSM. Fuel seemed low at arrival, only 45 liquid fuel in the CSM.

The landing itself was straightforward and getting the rovers out wasn't too difficult, either.

I have no footage after the landing, but the descent stage used only half its fuel (so a new version was made with half the fuel), and the ascent stage used less than half. All leftover fuel was transferred into the CSM (about 205 liquid fuel, I think), and there was 166 left after the return burn. I think I'll take a bit off the ascent stage as well, which should bring the combined mass of CSM and LM under 50t, and possibly under 45t.

Even though it's overkill, I'll probably still launch it on the FiveByFive, though. It looks good, and it has the five-engine clusters on each stage. Perhaps there'll be enough left to do the injection with the last lift stage.

As for the 6262: I took the 7472 and removed both struts, the reaction wheel and an FL-T100. It's very similar to my first attempt at going with a solid-only lifter, it's just that the side boosters can be decoupled, and there're no struts.

Left the atmosphere before the last solid booster burned out, then had to finish circularisation on the transfer stage.

After transfer, there was still fuel in the transfer stage to deorbit. That fuel ran out about the time that the radar altimeter in the cockpit began to move (so 3km AGL). Finished the landing with the lander, using about a third of the tank.

Cut it rather close with only 1.25 liquid fuel left, then landed with the parachute.

At this point, the only thing I can think to remove is the solar panels, which would bring the cost of a simple Mun mission down under the price of an ion engine, but seriously increase fiddly difficulty (due to charge management). As soon as I manage that (which would be 5662 funds), I'll go make a challenge for it. Hopefully, there'll be entrants before 0.24 is released...

Edit: Actually, I could also remove landing gear. Maybe if I feel the need to cut costs even further when the challenge gets going, I'll give that a shot.

Edit2: Removed solar panels, landing legs, and radial decouplers (replaced each radial decoupler with a Clampotron Jr. Took some fiddling) to make the 4262. Used that as the first entry for my new challenge: Munar Misers.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Concentric

[Skigazzi]

I made a hail mary rescue attempt for my 6 stranded kerbals on the Mun. I wanted to have them use a 'probe/lifter' I sent to fly them home to instead fly into a cargo section of a massive Mun Freightliner I had orbiting the Mun...that didnt work, as I have no RCS on it, so I blasted for Kerbin and figured I'd retro-burn and land gently (no parachute, because Kerbal).

I hit the atmosphere at 4000m/s , flames lasted till 20,000m (all my Kerbals were sitting externally..because Kerbal), and despite entering tail first, the drag flipped me nose first and the speed and general lack of a good design, I was unable to turn it around and slow it down...so they all died.

Then I decided to bring home the massive cargo thing, and it made it, and I even got rid of my nuclear engines to be a good Kerbin citizen, entered...hit the chutes (12 of them!) and it broke into pieces, but the pilot survived.

So, everyone is home (or dead..but home) and waiting for .24 to launch their next business operation

[StevenJ]

Well this isn't today but it is from yesterday. I was prototyping a SSTO rocket fighter plane for the kerbal Royal Airforce j/k. Here is Jeb doing an eva admiring it in its somewhat eccentric orbit. It landed safely with FAR installed and deadly re-entry (detuned). Presenting the Silverghost.

And for good measure, I was prototyping this military fighter bomber as well with it's 6m cargo bay last week.

Edited July 16, 2014 by StevenJ

[LordCorwin]

FYI, I don't know if this has been tested before or if it is a bug, but I'm going to explain what I've tested today.

It seems it is possible to place a Materials Bay AROUND a nuclear rocket. And both work ok. See the picture.

The drawback I've found is when staging a booster below this. The design gets a little crazy, and when doing the separation the rocket gets quite unstabilized. I've solved more or less the issue adding some retrorockets to the booster stage.

In the image you can see that the booster below the nuclear engine has 2 fuel tanks, and one of them is "mixed" with the nuclear engine, just were the material bay is. So in the same place we have materials bay, nuclear engine rocket and decoupler+ booster 2nd fuel tank.

Image before separation (they correspond to different flights, sorry).

The instant of the separation: activation of decoupler + retrorockets + nuclear engine fairing separation.

2 seconds later I managed to stabilize again the rocket.

Why mixing the materials bay and the nuclear engine? I wanted to save space above the engine, and reduce the position of the center of gravity.

Lord.

[Mister Kerman]

I've been struggling to make a decent fuel ship!

Here's my first one. It brought about a half of one of those orange tanks, plus whatever was inside of those radial boosters. Overall it did the best job, but I hated how plain it looked so I deleted it.

This next one is the most recent one. I like how beefy and cool it looks, but it's a bit of a hog on gas. The fuel flows from the large tank into the four little ones surrounding it. This mission will be one of the few that won't produce any space junk. I'm slowly trying to go green. My side boosters will decouple from my escape shuttle and act as 2 separate RC rockets, and will hopefully have enough fuel left in them de-orbit into the Mun. I think I'm only 10-15K above the surface or something. I tried to get my space lab's orbit really low.

Though the rocket is a failure in sending large amounts of fuel to my orbital station, it sent enough for another lander mission at least. Can anyone suggest any fuel payload tips they've learned? I'm having trouble making rockets able to accommodate large payloads. This is what I used to lift my most recent ship. It's by far better than the other ones I've been toying with, but still lacks raw power. There's got to be a better way to do this.

And this is my new lander design. I like how mean it looks. I'm going to be using more Command Module Alpha Mk1s until I make any iterations. Maybe a bigger engine...