What did you do in KSP1 today?

[ayana]

Took care of the Tylo exploration contract. Somehow didn't mess up the landing and made it on my first try, but I did overbuild the tiny probe by a large margin.

[JayKay]

Actually on the weekend, but anyway, I completed the recovery of the science from my Jool 5 mission. I got about 7500 out on recovery, plus a couple thousand more transmitted. I have yet to put the screenshots into an album, so it will be a while before I can post the mission.

JK

[Mister Kerman]

Had a new Kerbonaut become active today, Buzz Kerman! I think I will keep him for missions that require rendezvous and docking.

Omg I'm so jealous. I'm trying to copy the Apollo program. He'd be a perfect candidate to pilot my Munar module.

[Snowwy]

Gods I'm so lame. Year 46 in career mode.

Last night's accomplishments:

Completion of Caster Station - LKO transfer station containing fuel and RCS reserves. Berthing for 20 Kerbals, and yes almost my entire kerbonaut corps is up there. Docking for Antietam, my high-orbit tug, and WASP, my low orbit tug, plus additional docks for spaceplanes and intrasystem ships.

Flight of Albert Mk 8 spaceplane to LKO to await tow to Caster Station

Edited July 28, 2014 by Snowwy

[NecroBones]

Duna on a budget.

[Red Iron Crown]

Duna on a budget.

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202014-07-25%2014-53-56-25.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202014-07-25%2015-00-11-56.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202014-07-25%2015-03-49-39.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202014-07-27%2018-16-46-60.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202014-07-27%2020-12-52-54.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202014-07-27%2020-26-43-93.jpg

How much, once you've recovered the upper stage but not the lander?

[NecroBones]

How much, once you've recovered the upper stage but not the lander?

Good question. The SRB stages for launch were only recoverable via mod (StageRecovery). The mid-stage landed for normal recovery. The transfer stage and lander will also return to Kerbin for recovery (when the appropriate window rolls around).

Before adding the SRB parachutes, the total cost in the VAB was about 280k. Beyond that, I'd have to play around with it to figure out specific costs.

[Mister Kerman]

How much, once you've recovered the upper stage but not the lander?

This, and I was also wondering just a simple gameplay question. When you design a ship with engines facing the other way the way is, one ought to learn about action groups and control from the docking port's perperspective? (The port on the bottom of your ship)

If anyone else knows, don't be shy!

[Mister Kerman]

Oh man! Sorry for the double post if no one sneaks in before this one. But I have another question. Your transfer stage orbits while your lander lands? I thought it was just a single lander! That makes more sense...

Edit: I'm off-road riding shotgun in a truck right now so it's tough to get a good look at that dark picture right now!

[NecroBones]

When you design a ship with engines facing the other way the way is, one ought to learn about action groups and control from the docking port's perperspective? (The port on the bottom of your ship)

Yes, for docking you'll want to control from the docking port. But usually what I'll do, is wait until I'm close to the target, and then make the switch, and use RCS from that point on. RCS will do the right thing based on the direction the controlling part is facing. I'll use action groups to turn the engines off, so that only the transfer stage's engines remain turned on, for moving on to the next destination.

EDIT: Just remember to set your control-point back to the command pod after docking, or else you'll end up doing burns opposite to your maneuvers. Either that, or do the docking from the transfer stage, into the lander as the target.

Your transfer stage orbits while your lander lands? I thought it was just a single lander! That makes more sense...

Yes, that's right. Doing an "Apollo style" sort of thing helps a lot. The transfer stage has fuel-efficient nuclear engines, and lots of fuel for interplanetary travel, all of which is mass that you don't need to take to the surface. It just means you have to spend time with a rendezvous and docking.

Edited July 28, 2014 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

Good question. The SRB stages for launch were only recoverable via mod (StageRecovery). The mid-stage landed for normal recovery. The transfer stage and lander will also return to Kerbin for recovery (when the appropriate window rolls around).

Before adding the SRB parachutes, the total cost in the VAB was about 280k. Beyond that, I'd have to play around with it to figure out specific costs.

I'm curious now, so I remoted into my home machine to take a peek. After adding those parachutes and some other tweaks, the VAB cost is up to 301,708.2 (yeah, not cheap). The cost of the transfer stage + lander (not any of the lifter) is 159,240.

To keep things in perspective, when I say "on a budget", I mean not crazy-overkill like I used to do.

[Felsmak]

I climbed the VAB to test the impact tolerance of Kerbals.

I definitely did not expect him to survive that!

[TrooperCooper]

Started a new career while still waiting for a few mods to be updated...

The decoupler bug almost killed him, but a successful suicide burn allowed Jeb to land on the Mun in one piece and claim it for IKSA, the Imperial Kerbal Space Authority...

[LordCorwin]

Here you can see my concept of a nuclear lander that will go to Duna. It's called Harkonnen. Let's see if I'll be able to harvest anything :-)

Right now I'm testing it on Minmus.

Edited July 28, 2014 by LordCorwin

[lordlundar]

So today I decided to renew my space station project with a few new mods. Needless to say some things have changed.

My God It's HUGE! I have never launched anything this large before. To put it into perspective, the boosters (6 of them) are the 3.75 NASA tanks and the center is KW's 5m setup.

Here's the boosters off and fairings deployed. Those arms? While you see them later. The other two large parts, despite appearances are NOT from KSP Interstellar.

Here's the station fully deployed with REEEAALLY Big solar panels from the Kosmos pack. There's a HUGE amount of power in this station for good reason. Those two large parts at the middle and bottom are from the Jump Drive mod. Both use a LOT of power to use but can allow me to jump anywhere in the Solar system so long as I've been there already. I'm going to be deploying satellites with the gate (the middle section) To a location then jump stations to the location later. Finally, apart from the insane wobble it actually flies pretty well though I do wish the KW engines would cut power faster.

[Red Iron Crown]

Here you can see my concept of a nuclear lander that will go to Duna. It's called Harkonnen. Let's see if I'll be able to harvest anything :-)

Spice might be found on Duna, never a drop of rain there. Haven't seen a worm yet, though.

[NecroBones]

I'm curious now, so I remoted into my home machine to take a peek. After adding those parachutes and some other tweaks, the VAB cost is up to 301,708.2 (yeah, not cheap). The cost of the transfer stage + lander (not any of the lifter) is 159,240.

To keep things in perspective, when I say "on a budget", I mean not crazy-overkill like I used to do.

Quick update on this-- I realized the price of the interplanetary portion isn't the important part, since that's all recoverable (minus fuel). If you don't use DebRefund or StageRecovery to get some funds back from ejected stages, then the only completely expendable part of this Duna mission is all those SRBs.

The cost of the mid/upper stage + transfer stage + lander is 221,086. So the cost of the disposable staging is only 80,622.2 (plus fuel costs from the rest of the ship, of course). Plus, the lander has two drop tanks, so there's some minor loss of value there too.

[Concentric]

Built a successful (unmanned) payload-carrying spaceplane! With a bit of effort (and not using the parachutes, as I had to test the Mk25 drogue 'chute), I'm sure I'll be able to fly this one back - it was handling rather well on the way back down. The payload is a set of four probes, one of which is an ion drive: the plan is to put one on Eve, one in Eve orbit, one in Gilly orbit and land the drive on Gilly itself, before returning the Gilly landing probe to Kerbin. Unfortunately, I've been doing some delta-v calculations, and (though I'm erring on the cautious side), I don't think the ion drive's got the fuel to do it (only one xenon tank). Also, it's extremely expensive, and has no docking ports whatsoever...

Got the RAPIER as an experimental part, and don't have Supersonic Flight. I did, however, recently unlock the ram intake and structural wings, so even without the Mk 2 jet fuselage or higher, I could still build a plane. As my payload was narrow and under 2t, I decided to mount it in the centre, and make a bay around with wings. The engines were on FL-T800s, with their own FL-T400s and a shared Mk 1 jet fuselage between them

Had a couple of plateaus to build speed, particularly to get the Small Gear Bay test. The heating effect is at the end of my 20km speedbuild. After that, I went a bit higher, and soon switched to closed-cycle. Got the apoapse high enough that I doubted it'd decay back into the atmosphere (but I kept an eye on it), then coasted.

Got orbit and circularised, still lots of fuel remaining. The critical improvement over the previous version seems not to have been the added FL-T400s, but rather the attached strong reaction wheels and ram intakes. The previous version, by the way, didn't even manage to get its apoapse out of the atmosphere, going into a flat spin at a poor time. More yaw control also possibly helped. The RAPIERs switched modes asymmetrically, which gave a good hard kick to the plane's yaw.

It took timewarp-clipping to actually get the payload out, which wasn't ideal. If I was playing with a mod with bay doors, I'd probably have installed them to reduce the hassle. I think the wings and struts were too close to the solar panels and the probe stack kept getting caught.

Deorbited, trying to come down in the ocean just past KSC, as close as I could manage. The drogue 'chute test was rather high speed for the low altitude, so I decided to do it on the return, then land in the ocean on parachutes to perform the RAPIER splashdown test.

Came down close to the space centre. If I'd lowered the periapse further, perhaps I could have come in for a runway landing, but I needed the splashdown, anyway.

Tried to turn back and reduce distance after deploying the 'chutes, but didn't get much closer. I've never built a seaplane, much less a seaspaceplane, so taking off again and landing on the runway just wasn't in the cards. How high can the recovery rate go outside KSC itself? 98%?

Still, in the 97% region is an okay recovery rate. That extremely expensive payload, though... as my calculations tell me it in no way has the fuel to do the job I want from it, I'll probably be bringing that back down with it's 'chutes. Six gravioli detectors, a seismic accelerometer, an RTG and the ionic peripherals are quite a bit to leave elsewhere, particularly with not a docking port in sight to attach an extra fuel tank or three. I'll rework the payload somewhat to give it enough, then send it up again, probably with another spaceplane. My window's not for another year and a half, anyway. Maybe I'll make it a manned-capable rescue plane, too - there's an orbital rescue mission available, and the fuel cost was certainly cheaper than my current disposable RescuerC launch.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Concentric

[Ruthgar]

Here you can see my concept of a nuclear lander that will go to Duna. It's called Harkonnen. Let's see if I'll be able to harvest anything :-)

http://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq262/Lord_Corwin/Harkonnen1.png~original

Right now I'm testing it on Minmus.

Hmmmm, Harkonnen, like the Harkonnen cannon from Hellsing

[kbatman]

Hmmmm, Harkonnen, like the Harkonnen cannon from Hellsing

I took it as a Dune reference...

[General Rarity]

[MrXenox]

Today I landed on Gilly for the first time, I found the gravity to be quite troublesome as my craft kept bouncing off the terrain and I had to retro thrust with RCS to get it to settle. I also utterly failed at towing an asteroid into a stable Kerbin orbit.

[LordCorwin]

I took it as a Dune reference...

Right, it was a Dune reference, I didn't know the other one ;-)

[soulsource]

I brought Jebediah his new car! The rover has been sent to Eve along with the fuel for the lander, and was waiting in Eve orbit. Now that Jeb has finally landed, the rover had to follow. I missed the landing site quite a bit, but after a few hours of driving on remote, it's finally there. The next step will be to bring Jeb to the coast in order to obtain a sample of the liquid.

<iframe class="imgur-album" src="http://imgur.com/a/zCaQM/embed?background=f2f2f2&text=1a1a1a&link=4e76c9" width="100%" frameborder="0" height="550"></iframe>

@LordCorwin: My Duna lander design was called Spiceworm 1, so if I would have sent it to Duna (what I will not do in 0.23.5 - I'm just too curious about contracts...), there would have been at least one of them there... Sadly I'll probably have to rebuild it in 0.24...

[KerbMav]

The lander crew of the Duna Return Mission encountered a strangely formed piece of rock ...

Suborbital hops on Duna are unexpectedly dV hungry, aborted flight to next anomaly to rendezvous with the mothership. Refueling the lander from its Kethane tanks (which powers the nukes in my current universe) left me with ... nothing. The Jool mission carries a miner lander and will have to pay Duna a visit for that mission to continue and get home in the end.

Explorer III on its Jool mission is still 1,5y away from its destination.

Aerobraking at 130km above Jool leaves my ion probe 100% intact - DRE might be on vacation? Not even the solar panels snapped.

(The solar panels ... I use a cfg that makes 1. the "unboxed" solar panels non-retractable and 2. solar panels output in general more dependent from distance to the sun. At Jool this ion probe has enough battery power to thrust at 100% for 1m10s. Not ideal to transfer up to Vall, needing 800m/s to establish orbit ...)