What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Liowen]

Aerobraked into Eve then used saved fuel to go out to Gilly after putting lander and probe in orbit, currently cursing the slow m/s orbit round Gilly to get orbit science!

Wait until you try to land/hover onto Gilly, it is so painful if you are high above Gilly. I would suggest watching a 3 Lord of the Rings movie in the extended cut versions, that might be just enough filler until you are near the ground of Gilly.

[NecroBones]

More stuff for my parts-pack that I'm working on...

New 3.75m ASAS and Monopropellant tanks. Also made variants of the "Docking Helper" in 2.5m and 9.625m sizes (Large and Junior, respectively).

[LordFerret]

Sent an unmanned probe to Jool, my first visit there, and ran into the Kraken ... again.

[Hurry- Starfish!]

Attempted to fulfill a contract but got cheated out of my rewards.

What the heck do you want me to do, game?

[EdFred]

Took a 2 man lander can to Eve. Made the ascent from Eve 500MSL to 100km x 100km orbit, and had .08 units of fuel left (1dV).

I need to squeeze another 500dV out of the craft somehow, to make sure I can ascend from ~0MSL.

[Spatzimaus]

Fine-tuned my ultra-cheap SSTO spaceplane, the Dinky Weasel 1a:

8 tons empty, plus two tons of fuel, with half of the dry mass going to the cockpit and RAPIERs. Cost is only 30k, and if you land it back at KSC (fairly trivial) it'll refund 28-29k. Uses parts from B9 and Spaceplane+.

Basically, it's great for those rescue Kerbonaut missions, since it can be launched unmanned (it has a probe core), and eventually I'll use it to shuttle people to and from my space stations. At present, what I mostly use it for is launching mapping satellites, which can barely fit into the SP+ half-size cargo bay.

And here's the satellite in question, the DinkySat 1a:

2 tons, basically a ScanSat High-Res scanner and an SAR (biome/anomaly), plus a Kethane scanner fit onto as small a body as possible without turning off clipping checks; this scanner combination is the reason it has so many solar panels, as they're very energy-intensive. It also has a temperature sensor, atmo sensor (for a death-dive into Jool) and an antenna. Cost is 50k, but you get over 250k from each "transmit science from Laythe" contract (the reason for the temperature sensor) so you'll make the money back quickly once you get them around each moon or planet.

With almost 18k m/s of dV from its ion engine, it can go pretty much anywhere from low Kerbin orbit without help, although the burns to get to Jool were ~25 minutes at each end. (Crank up time acceleration or go watch a video or something.)

Parts are from the Hybrid Ion mod, ScanSat, Kethane, plus one custom part basically equivalent to three small xenon tanks built into a half-scale type 1 fuselage.

So yeah, the new budget system has made for some entertaining design sessions, as everything I launch is now SSTO, capable of being landed at KSC, and smaller than I'd previously use. Even the massive boosters I use for my heavy stuff have built-in parachutes and control nodes so I can land them safely.

[Kowgan]

Today was a busy day (no pictures, I'll leave it all for your imagination).

- Refueled my unmanned Kethane Mün Station;

-> There was a problem while undocking the Kethane Drill in order to send it back to the Mün surface. Had to send Jebediah and Thomas over there to figure out what was happening;

-> Eventually all the lights at the Kethane Station went off. Jeb was absolutely sure there were aliens inside the station and almost managed to EVA on the way there, trying to escape;

-> At the station, Jeb found the emergency lights switch, and Thomas found the malfunctioning docking port motor. Easy fix after that;

-> Of course, Jeb had to stop responding the radio for a few seconds, and scared the hell out of me. Thankfully, Thomas said Jeb was just giving me a prank, and a few curse words came out of Jeb's mouth after that. Everyone went back home happy.

- Sent a resupply vessel with Thomas inside towards the KSS;

-> Refueled, resupplied the Kibbals into the Zoology Module and left Thomas over there to take care of the general routine maintenance.

- Spent several hours thinking and doodling ships in my mind, planning my next big moves:

-> Build a Science Base at Minmus' surface, and;

-> Build a Science Station at Eve's low orbit.

[Concentric]

Attempted to fulfill a contract but got cheated out of my rewards.

http://puu.sh/bm7mt.png

What the heck do you want me to do, game?

Because your apoapse is inside the atmosphere of Jool, your ship is currently "flying", and not "in orbit". If instead you have an eccentric orbit with a higher apoapse, putting the periapse in the altitude window, then you can perform the test at periapse and it should work fine, IIRC. However, I might be wrong (suborbital?), in which case you've accepted an impossible contract that you perhaps needed to be more careful about accepting. Hope this helps.

[EdFred]

Wait until you try to land/hover onto Gilly, it is so painful if you are high above Gilly. I would suggest watching a 3 Lord of the Rings movie in the extended cut versions, that might be just enough filler until you are near the ground of Gilly.

The key to Gilly: Burn TOWARDS the surface to start your descent.

[BoilingCold]

Put my first orbital station together! It's nothing amazing, and unfortunately it's currently bugged, but it works (kinda).

[M4ck]

I've ripped out a piece of munar surface and placed it above the KSC. Like this:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

It's not textured like it should be, but I love it already It was a pain in the exhaust to model it properly, but I think I'm getting better at it

[Kowgan]

@M4ck: The Kerbal eyes can't open enough to express how amazed I am. This is brilliant!

On the other side, poor Mün. Did it hurt?

[KingPhantom]

i really love to put lander probes on bodies (without worring about return) and put a remote rover on the lander its great to drive around

[capi3101]

Last night it was back to business as usual; making moola, testing parts, planting flags, transmitting worthless science, more parts testing, more parts testing, more parts testing...unlocked BZ-52s (my personal favorite). My current research path will take me out to Meta-Materials (and Sr. Docking Ports) before heading back for bigger probe cores and PB-NUKs, then spaceplanes, rovers, and ion propulsion last. It occurs to me that I've still only been out to Mun twice and Minmus once since starting this career save and that there's a lot of science still to be made. Funds are past 3 million at this point.

[Spilldog]

Registered on the Forum!

Some random screenshots, while I try to sort out screenshot folder

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[TrooperCooper]

Launched the TCI Prometheus II...

The 2 million Kredit ship is designed as a long-term exploration and science vessel, featuring all kinds of experiments and station science laboratories and equipment. Once fueled up, it has a range of more than 6k dV and its TAC Life Support systems can keep the standard crew of four Kerbals alive for eleven years before it needs to be resupplied.

At the tail end, between the four Kerbodyne main engines, the Prometheus has its own landing craft mounted up. The lander has 5k dV by itself and should be able to land on any orbital body except for Tylo and Eve. Laythe might be possible, but would have to be tested. The lander also has life support to keep the piloting Kerbal alive for two years...

The Prometheus is now preparing for a first test-run to Minmus, where it will also be fueled up and run the first set of station science experiments...

[Liowen]

Today I docked my Habitation ring and another container can, this one for ls making supplies, to The Watch Tower. Now I am making food and water, but losing water in the process (I think because I do not have enough Kerbals to run the processes). More crew will arrive soon to help produce things faster, and prepare for more modules that will arrive in the future.

[SkyRex94]

Not actually done today, but during the week. I finally pulled off my Jool 5 Mission and it already got Reviewed . I'm really happy with the outcome. Link to pictures in my Signature;)

[Jon Tash]

While still testing my "almost" all in one ship(Not Yet Named), I decided to look at some new parts of the B9 mod and launched a simple space ship to Minmus and joined the "not yet named" ship in testing.

Love the new NASA warpship cockpit.

After some crew management the "Not Yet Named" ship descended to Minmus and landed (like a glove) on one of the ice lakes.

Billy-Bobmund Kerman happy to be the first (on this save) to step on Minmus and plant the flag.

I really should name this ship, I like its design.

Using spoiler so people can scroll down faster.

[TimberWolffe]

today I hurled Sigbald Kerman into the sun for crashing his Munar lander (which is so successful the launch stage reaches Munar orbit) and losing me 140 science and 2.5 hours of my time

he looked cool going in though

[JDCollie]

Because your apoapse is inside the atmosphere of Jool, your ship is currently "flying", and not "in orbit". If instead you have an eccentric orbit with a higher apoapse, putting the periapse in the altitude window, then you can perform the test at periapse and it should work fine, IIRC. However, I might be wrong (suborbital?), in which case you've accepted an impossible contract that you perhaps needed to be more careful about accepting. Hope this helps.

So long as your periapsis is above the cut off point, you can actually achieve orbit within the atmosphere of a planet. For example, as long as both your AP and PE are above 20km on Kerbin, the game will consider you in "orbit" of Kerbin (the camera will even change to orbital mode). The problem is that I don't know the cut off altitude of Jool. However, if Kerbin is any model to go by, I estimate that anything with a PE below approximately 39-40km altitude would be considered on an impact trajectory. (I.E., ~28.5% of overall atmospheric altitude)

Today I docked my Habitation ring and another container can, this one for ls making supplies, to The Watch Tower. Now I am making food and water, but losing water in the process (I think because I do not have enough Kerbals to run the processes). More crew will arrive soon to help produce things faster, and prepare for more modules that will arrive in the future.

http://i60.tinypic.com/288s521.png

You can check the efficiency of OKS modules by right clicking on them. So long as you use the governor (it's one of right click menu options on all OKS modules) you should be able to maintain 100% efficiency. (You'll only fall below that when you run out of waste resources due to having fewer kerbals on the station than the system can support.)

Edited September 5, 2014 by JDCollie

[Liowen]

You can check the efficiency of OKS modules by right clicking on them. So long as you use the governor (it's one of right click menu options on all OKS modules) you should be able to maintain 100% efficiency. (You'll only fall below that when you run out of waste resources due to having fewer kerbals on the station than the system can support.)

Yeah I think one of the modules is running at about 38% so more crew is in order, I would check but I am rendering a video atm and heading out once it is done. Luckily it does not consume things while the game is off LOL.

[JDCollie]

Yeah I think one of the modules is running at about 38% so more crew is in order, I would check but I am rendering a video atm and heading out once it is done. Luckily it does not consume things while the game is off LOL.

The governor should allow an undercrewed module to run at 100% efficiency. At least, that's what it is supposed to do

[Liowen]

The governor should allow an undercrewed module to run at 100% efficiency. At least, that's what it is supposed to do

Well it does until you have more than one process running, then it fractionalizes them.....or so my understanding goes. Some of it also has to do with TAC consumption rate changes. Also that should be I am making food and water but losing oxygen, not sure why I keep posting it wrong today.

[Hurry- Starfish!]

Because your apoapse is inside the atmosphere of Jool, your ship is currently "flying", and not "in orbit". If instead you have an eccentric orbit with a higher apoapse, putting the periapse in the altitude window, then you can perform the test at periapse and it should work fine, IIRC. However, I might be wrong (suborbital?), in which case you've accepted an impossible contract that you perhaps needed to be more careful about accepting. Hope this helps.

But it isn't. Both my apoapsis and periapsis are at 150km, Jool atmosphere only goes up to 138. Which means I have a perfectly fine orbit there, just as the contract says, but it still won't accept it.