What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Concentric]

Built an utterly nutbars ion lander. I plan to send it from LKO to land on Pol and Bop and get back, all without docking through the power of xenon. An early version massed 5t exactly, and was exactly 35% xenon gas, which is almost 17.75km/s of delta-v. I then decided to check the TWR... and realised that a single ion engine would in no way provide enough thrust for this to land on Pol, let alone Bop. Even Gilly might be asking too much. So, more engines, more xenon, more batteries and more power generation (making a total of 13 RTGs and no solar panels) brought me up to 7.5t and a healthy Bop TWR. Total delta-v: 13.8km/s, by my calculations. That should do it, right?

Part clipping all over the place. None of it required the debug menu, however.

Of course, after that I needed to put it in LKO and test it on Minmus. So, I decided to make a new lifter. With the 5t version, I experimented with an almost-entirely solid lifter - five Kerbodyne SRBs with varying thrust limiters, decoupling in pairs radially from the core one, above which sits an LV-909 and FL-T200, then the payload.

As you can see, when the last SRB ran out, it was very nearly in orbit already. Perhaps it could have managed it without the liquid part. It was at this point that I changed to the 7.5t version. After testing its ability to parachute safely, I stuck it atop the same lifter, to see what might need to be done.

The first pair dropped at 10km. The second followed at around 25km. The core would keep burning even as the rocket left the atmosphere. I found some control stability issues with the rocket, so in a later version, I decided to add fins to the bottom.

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite able to get to orbit without using the ion engines of the payload. I reverted to vehicle assembly after testing its safe landing capabilities by parachuting into the ocean.

Twice the liquid fuel should make circularisation possible. Also, the fins here are on the core, as putting them on the outer boosters was found to cause them to collide with the core when decoupling.

Solid fuel ran out while suborbital, but there was enough liquid fuel to circularise at 80km. The circularisation could have been more efficient - not that it mattered, there was still a little fuel left over.

So, anyway, Minmus. Didn't bother to check for contracts related to Minmus, and only took a thermometer reading. This isn't about that, it's about confirming the lander's capabilities. It took several burns of reasonable length to get the Minmus encounter, but orbit, deorbit and landing were much simpler. Then it was return time.

Decided to use a Mun flyby to bring the orbit down somewhat. I then repeatedly aerobraked until the apoapse was below 240km and made a couple of tries at landing at KSC. It was a no-go on that front, but I wasn't on the other side of the planet, either.

A safe return and recovery. For once, I didn't gain any money from this successful launch whatsoever. The cost was low enough to keep me over the 20 million line only due to the recovery value.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Concentric

[DocMoriarty]

I sat up a new totally futuristic and artificially looking home base for spare Kerbals to man them unmanned external seats at KSC.

Can you smell the cows?

Edited August 19, 2014 by DocMoriarty

[CatastrophicFailure]

I just watched Jeb take over the KSC with his pet dragon. It was horrible.

Looks more like a treys actor terrible doctor terry Daryl

DYAC!!!!!

Dino bird.

[FacialJack]

Awesome dragon Felsmak, a Space Smaug

Edited August 19, 2014 by FacialJack

[Heimdall5008]

Today I finished all science readings on Kerbin. I still had 4 left (naturally in 4 different biomes) so I had to make 4 trips to get thema all. The first three were no problem and for two of them I used my first aerodynamical stable plane. For the last one I had to use the landing assist from MJ because I really suck at landing at precise locations...

After this I had the great idea to make a plane with airdrop capability for Kerbals and a rover (airborne style...). Unfortunatly I had not heard of the bug with decoupling several commandable subunits at the same time. Therefore I effectively screwed uo my save game. So while the effects were spectulary I could not make any nice pics instead I spend the rest of the time to repair my save game with notepad++. But at least it works again...

[FacialJack]

I pass a long time to strut KE, this time wiz Jeb, and FirstpersonEVA

As i try to move the KAS container support cauz it is on strut path, i loose the box which start to fall quickly, so Jeb drop all and go rescue it. catch it at 250m away ! (very funny to do )

Jeb catch back the KAS container i let go

KAS container saved !

FirstPersonEVA

What's that Jeb !!? Space PooPoo !? u pollute sky !! Next time, ill put ure nose inside bad Jeb !!

But... How eject u that from ure space suit Jeb ?

The Kerbol Explorer, Fully strutted and wiz new panels orientation

I change some branch orientation to avoid panel intersection.

After a try of Ionnic burn, i can put them at 1/3 of their power (wiz 1100 electricity/s), and that produce an honorable 0.36 m/s acceleration of the 792t of KE. KE as 3.02km/s dV wiz ionnic, but at that speed... that will be a loooong acceleration

I just reinstall KSP interstellar, and i saw that there a microwave beam, which permit too project energy. I dream about it a few days ago, wizout even knowing that's still existing !!

So for my 2/3 missing ionnic power, ill build a serie of plateform around kerbol, which collect and concentrate and project Solar power, not sure to do that before Duna's Mission. But first, ive too launch the payload of KE

Edited August 19, 2014 by FacialJack
changing pic

[problemecium]

o_O Not sure you have enough panels...

Today I started this.

[JebNeedsHelp]

Some time ago, I was attempting to land a 10-Kerbal Colony in the Jool system, but as usual at the time, I ran out of fuel too soon, so I used what I had to place the thing in orbit around Jool (I think). Anyway, it didn't stay there long - I didn't see exactly what happened but while flying a later mission I saw the colony on a Sun-escape trajectory, and realized it had been ejected from the Joolian system somehow. Since then, the re-named Deep Space One has been on a Voyager-like trajectory - today I thought I'd see how it was doing.

Man, the Sun is small.... Notice the G following the altimeter reading. And the MET... good thing they packed a bunch of Thai food.

Now, you think I would have learned how not to do that again, but to the right of Deep Space One is, you guessed it, Deep Space Two. Ten more Kerbals hurling their bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out there, courtesy of the Joolian system, again. DS2 hasn't quite reached the 2G mark.

Also, that probe way past Eeloo is my first attempt to return science to Kerbin from that far above the Sun. Since I'm running a stock game, I'm not completely sure I've got the fuel to make Kerbin, but I'll find out soon enough.

[Xacktar]

Today, I launched... um... launch clamps.

Not what I was intending to do, but still entertaining.

[SkyHook]

My space program got a whole lot more cost effective with this baby! It cost me about 300k funds to launch the various iterations, but hopefully this one will last the duration of my space program.

[Mister Kerman]

Dude. Nice lander. I like ion engines a lot but I'm not good enough at the game to mess around with them. I haven't even bothered unlocking them since I can only see them being used in satellites. I like seeing stuff like this though.

[Felsmak]

Jeb Has now legally changed his name to Khaleesi Kerman, refusing to accept that it in fact is a feminine title, and he's now rallying his dragons to help him retake the Ion Throne. He lost it shortly after the picture at the bottom was taken.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Felsmak

[Floppster]

Installed NEAR and was fascinated by how much easier it was to get to orbit. Though I flipped out a few times due to high AoA before realizing what was up.

Tweaked my Munar Crew Shuttles Gamma and Delta and told the blokes down at manufacturing to send me two of each. Today was a good day.

[DocMoriarty]

Added final stuff to my documentation about space plane construction and updated it on curse now also covering all the VTOL stuff: KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation

Other than that my Kerbals are taking a day off today and told me to return tomorrow.

[Thorium]

Landed my spacecraft from my other rescue mission to the Mun a few meters off the launchpad (that jet engine is from a contract mission I had to take on to fund the mission).

Launched KSS4 as part of a contract mission from the mod Fine Print. I also brought a Kethane and a Karbonite skanner.

[soulsource]

I put my communication network backbone satellites to a parking orbit around Kerbin. It's amazing how many dishes are required in order to make them link to all planets, to each other and to their uplink satellites at Kerbin (or, more precisely, leading and trailing the Mün). They require about 18 charge/second, and have very little battery capacity, so I cannot activate their dishes until they are on an escape trajectory from Kerbin, since otherwise they would quickly run out of power in the dark. I was quite tired when I built them, so I didn't realize that I was cheating by using the massless Communotron 88-88 and Octogonal Strut parts... Well, now that they are in orbit and cost quite a bit of money, I'm definitely not going to crash and redesign them... What amazes me is, that the rocket I used to send them to orbit worked so flawlessly and reached orbit with plenty of fuel left, although it was engineered to just barely reach it. Maybe it wasn't the worst idea to put the big delta wings and large control surfaces on the bottom stage...

Since I now finally can target them, the next step will be accurate positioning of the uplink satellites (which will never be active vessel after positioning, so that their orbit stays on rails). They need to stay within the cone of the LKO relays targeting the Mün, and should have nearly exactly the same orbital period. This means 45 minutes of darkness twice every 6 days (behind Kerbin, and behind Mun). Their power consumption is so high, that for that periods of darkness batteries with more than 16000 charge units are required. I shortly thought about using RTGs, but well, I simply like the look of solar panels, so their main body basically is a stack of batteries with antennas and solar panels attached. I'm already curious how well positioning works and if I can avoid passing through the Müns SOI.

And one last thing, slightly OT: I read in the Devnote, that the Spaceplane Plus parts will be included in KSP. In my opinion that's awesome!

[SickSix]

Just after midnight this morning I cheated and used infinite fuel to return my first Mun mission. I got of the Mun but didn't have the fuel to escape to Kerbin. I am slightly ashamed but was so frustrated after two failed rescue attempts to get Jebidiah out of extreme Kerbin orbit. I wasn't abandoning Bill.

[Felsmak]

I built a new weapon for the Kerbal people to use against Jeb's dragon army, the B.A.D.A.S.S. Walkatron!

It's time to slay those dragons and bring Jeb to justice!

[Red Iron Crown]

I built a new weapon for the Kerbal people to use against Jeb's dragon army, the B.A.D.A.S.S. Walkatron!

http://i.imgur.com/oHN4nC0.png

http://i.imgur.com/7GI7Q5Z.png

http://i.imgur.com/ckd1QC8.png

It's time to slay those dragons and bring Jeb to justice!

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Felsmak again." You're on a roll.

[johnqevil]

I built a new weapon for the Kerbal people to use against Jeb's dragon army, the B.A.D.A.S.S. Walkatron!

http://i.imgur.com/oHN4nC0.png

http://i.imgur.com/7GI7Q5Z.png

http://i.imgur.com/ckd1QC8.png

It's time to slay those dragons and bring Jeb to justice!

Please, we must have this craft file! Also, mods? I'm assuming Infernal Robotics, of course...

[juanml82]

Jeb Has now legally changed his name to Khaleesi Kerman, refusing to accept that it in fact is a feminine title, and he's now rallying his dragons to help him retake the Ion Throne. He lost it shortly after the picture at the bottom was taken.

http://i.imgur.com/N18q1Ml.png

http://i.imgur.com/ZmLgNsC.png

Awesome. I'm also taking Jeb's Ion Throne screenshot and throwing it into my wallpapers folder.

[Steampunked]

Messed with ModuleManager and KAS: http://i.imgur.com/kHMjZlL.png

Oh god Roley what they have done to you.....

I choked on a sandwich laughing when I got to this...

[Tex_NL]

Finished my shipyard around Minmus. High time to start building my interplanetary design.

Too bad it's too late to profit from my current Jool window.

[benkh]

Wernher von Kerman offered me a nice FinePrint Contract. They wanted me to land a rover on Minmus an explore a few sites. Nothing easier than that !

Because the Kraken killed my captured Asteroid yesterday I decided to take this opportunity to collect some science from Minmus. I built a Rover strapped it on my Korion Lander (which was designed to land on Duna) and flew to Minmus. Nothing exciting yet.

Happy Kerbal on Minmus:

Did the usual: Make experiments grab them and put 'em in the Pod.

Then my Kerbals boarded the rover and drove to the site. If you know Fineprint you also know that there are a bunch of locations you have to drive to. However I arrived at one and the wohole contract was completed. Fine with me...

Unlikely my rover wasn't able to drive a slope up. SO I used the RCS to fly it to my Lander (thanks Gravity) and drove the last few hundred meters on my one.

Strangely after my Kerbals left the Rover one of them didn't want to move anymore (was probably out of snacks although I have enough food from TACLS). I quit the game for today. Maybe he isn't as stubborn tomorrow.

BTW: Is there a way to make the pictures not as Big or hide them in spoiler tags?

[Strelka-]

Got my Duna base up and running.

Need to add fuel depots, crew modules and a few more hangars!