What did you do in KSP1 today?

[FacialJack]

the solution: ignore mass, more engines, bigger wings.

I agree !! More engines have more fun !!

even if more airintakes will surely be better here, as more airintakes permit to go higher and quiker wiz turbojet

[Spatzimaus]

the solution: ignore mass, more engines, bigger wings.

If all you want is to get to low orbit and back, nothing else, then it's pretty easy: make a 2-RAPIER jet, ~9 tons total mass, with most of the tanks being LFO mix and only a small amount being pure LF. Here's mine, using parts from B9 and SP+:

You can do something equivalent with stock parts, but I wanted it to also be able to carry a ~2-ton ion probe into orbit and there aren't cargo bays in stock, yet. (It can do it, barely, as seen in the screenshot.) Without the probe it easily has enough delta-V to do all the rescue missions. The intakes are large enough that I can get up to ~1700m/s and ~30km before switching to rocket mode, which means it doesn't waste much fuel getting to orbital speed.

----------------------------

As to what I did today: ROVERS. You see, I have two basic rover types that I use. Both are Kethane refineries, so that I can refuel any vessel that lands on whatever moon/planet the rovers are based on (as long as you land close enough, anyway). Granted, I've got several other Kethane-based vessels to refuel things in orbit, but I figured I'd want some excuse to make rovers as well. They're just fun to play with.

The first is the Iguana class of rovers; ~25 tons, can hold 2 men (or run unmanned), VTOL engines to let it jump ridges and such, small kethane refinery and drills. In my previous career save, I had a few of these scattered around the various planets to help out; I could fly one straight to Mun or Minmus from LKO using solely its onboard fuel and the VTOL engines, like so:

That's an older picture, but the basic design hasn't changed much since then; I've tweaked the fuel amounts a bit, and moved some parts around. It's just a really handy design; the only problem I've had is ripping the tires up by turning at high speed, but as long as there's a kerbonaut onboard he can get out and fix it easily and with 8 wheels you can lose a couple and still drive just fine.

Tonight, though, I put the finishing touches on my main mobile base design, Mun Unit Zappa. It used to use dozens of the largest stock wheels, but I've switched to treads from a mod:

511 tons (sans Kethane), 22 treads, and it holds a metric buttload of fuel. Its acceleration is terrible, as is the braking, but if you're going in a straight line it can cruise at ~10m/s indefinitely. The main body are 5m tanks (KW Rocketry), for reference, so it's really just a big honking vehicle that drives more like a train than a car. The greenhouse modules from HOME are purely cosmetic, but I like the aesthetic for my bases/stations and they don't waste much mass.

I sent a 200-ton smaller version of this to Mun in the last career, but I haven't launched this one yet. The lifting isn't the problem, I've got a 12k-ton SSTO booster than can lift my 900-ton stations easily, so this is actually a bit on the small side. Its center of mass is exactly inside the central junction, which means it can easily handle skyhooks and such; I just haven't finished designing the transfer stages yet. (The old version had onboard engines with a TWR of ~0.35, but I haven't done that on this one.)

Tonight's efforts, though, involved making it capable of docking with an Iguana:

Yep, if you pull the Iguana under the front end and line them up, it'll dock automatically onto a couple downward-facing ports. Really handy for transferring fuel and such, although with the KAS winches and the asteroid claw it's pretty easy to dock other ways.

Now I just have to figure out where on Mun I want this behemoth.

[corvustech]

After having my space program entirely reset by what I now call the Glue Kraken (nothing undocks again, EVER) I added more mods. B9 Aerospace had to be cut, sadly, as when installed alongside Interstellar Lite or Karbonite I started getting a memory leak with that mod installed. My new goal in the short term? Blow through getting someone on the moon and back and all the other startup missions.

Jeb took a quick hop up to space to grab some science and unlock contracts (I got tired of using RT-10s as decouplers) and his reward was to get an orbiter with some style.

It's a pity KerbPaint is an incomplete project. Protip Squad: Add a colorable alpha to the models. Does this ship oddly make anyone else remember Wing Commander fondly?

After this flight, a few satellites were tossed up for SCIENCE! as well as getting some early-game ore, Karb, and kethane scanning started in Kerbin's SoI. By the time I unlock drills I should know where to drill. With that done, I set out to do something I've never done before: Get Jeb to the Mun without stranding him on it on the first try.

I know for a Mun trip this might be slightly overkill, but I was also experimenting with that middle stage as a small mid-stage lifter and I was making sure I had more than enough fuel to get there and back. I always run out of gas on the Mun trying not to faceplant into it. I actually nailed the flight and next thing I know I've got a fantastic landing spot right next to a crater and on the day side of the Mun to boot!

Jeb got a nice view over the nearby crater.

So far, no problems, which means they were overdue. True to form, the problem that arose jeopardized the entire idea of the mission: this landing point is at the precise location Not Facing Kerbin N x Not Facing Kerbin E. This is known as "limbo" on a tidally locked mess like the Mun. It took all of my remaining fuel to reach Kerbin's orbit, and much of my RCS fuel used as emergency thrust to reach Kerbin. Fortunately, this worked, and for the first time, Jeb was both the first one to the Mun AND the first one back!

[NecroBones]

Argh! I'm still struggling with Unity and PartTools to get my damn little engine working.

Oh man, do you need some help? I can probably walk you through the way I've been doing it. And there are some helpful tutorials and so on. Engines are slightly trickier, which is why I started with fuel tanks and other static parts. With engines, you're looking at meshes for the base, bell/skirt, fairing, at least one collision mesh, and you have to make a thrust-transform in Unity that points the right way.

[capi3101]

Continued construction of Space Station Mere in orbit of the Mun. Sent another spoke module up and sent up the first habitation module with a crew of six white-suits to join the other two already up there. I knew that my first spoke module was turned exactly ninety degrees out of alignment, so I decided to go ahead and attempt a realignment (which turned out to be hairier than I'd though it would be, though I still managed to get the job done. Six of the station's planned seventeen modules are now in place, including three out of four spokes and two ring segments. I plan on putting up a fueling module next, after which the station should be fully capable of supporting extended expeditions to the Munar surface.

[BagelRabbit]

In the words of the Four Chords Song (listen to it pls)... "It's a bird... It's a plane... it's a [REDACTED] Bird-Plane!"

Here, my friends, is a Bird-Plane. This took a surprising amount of time to do... but it was so worth it.

[voidfarer]

I recently added the MKS/OKS mod, and have been playing with it my Sandbox game (the mod has a steep learning curve, and many of the components are quite expensive, so testing it out in my Career game seemed unwise).

My OKS space station's first two modules: a docking module and habitat module (consisting of a Kerbitat and an inflatable Habitation Ring) have been docked in LKO (about 125 km up).

Here is the construction team -- Milfurt, Barbald, and Roley Kerman -- arriving at the station aboard a rather prosaically-named Three-Man Utility Spacecraft. Note the 6S Service Component Tube just aft of the large decoupler, which conceals the its batteries, monopropellant tanks, and a bare-minimum set of TAC Life Support HexCans. The Three-Man Utility Spacecraft is intended to be cheap, and has just barely enough Delta-v to get up to the space station and de-orbit again safely.

Here is a view of the whole space station, thus far:

Note that the space station has two sets of docking ports. The set closer to the habitation module is intended for visiting spacecraft. Once the station is complete, the other set of ports (closer to the antenna cluster) will be used for large unmanned tankers.

The space station's OKS components are being launched unfinished, as mere empty shells. The Basic Machinery that will make everything functional will be brought up later, aboard unmanned cargo ships -- installing it will be Milfurt, Barbald, and Roley's job. Unfortunately, the station won't provide any life support until that job is finished, so in the meantime the construction crew will be living in this "construction shack" temporary shelter.

Life support consumables are provided by an unmanned self-propelled life support module, launched separately and docked to side of the construction shack. One wonders how the food gets out of those TAC HexCans, through that small docking port, and into the Hitchhiker Storage Container. I tend to imagine it delivered through pipes in paste or slurry form, and dispensed through spigots into collapsible plastic squeeze-tubes (very appetizing, yes). If that is, indeed, their staple diet, then it's not surprising Kerbals are so fond of snacks -- one imagines them jamming as many cellophane-wrapped goodies as possible into the pockets of their flight suits right before take-off. That will also give them an incentive to get station's Aeroponics Module and inflatable Agriculture Modules operational on schedule!

[capi3101]

In the words of the Four Chords Song

Ah, the Axis of Awesome...you know they actually did "Birdplane" as a seperate song, right? (And it just happened to wind up in "Four Chords" because "Superman", the song of which "Birdplane" is a direct spoof, for obvious reasons).

Awesome plane, BTW. Er...bird-plane. A mutha-effin' birdplane.

[FacialJack]

Today its a great day for Kerbol Explorer, as he succefully accomplish his first long burn wizout deviating nor wobling, nor breaking something

Im very happy by this "birth" as its not ensure it work, and reprsent lots of game session.

So i make a few burn test while changing the 12 upper nuke engines trust, and it appear that at 70% of trust, it permit a stable flight, wiz SAS only, enabling stability needed for long burn. I burn 2min for 200m/s (approx), wizout break anything, nor wobling, perfectly stable, but IRL, that take close to 20min... going to Duna promit to be long

At the end of burn test, i saw three purple things, and dont know what's... OVNIs?

[Xacktar]

After a few weeks break due to a failed hard drive, I'm finally releasing a new All Kerb'd Up! Feels great!

[TimePeriod]

1406 Parts / 12695 Tons.

100% stable. Hits LKO with some 1600T of final payload.

Yes, Jeb did enjoy the trip to orbit.

Edited September 16, 2014 by TimePeriod

[Jon Tash]

Dear god... This is... Jeb...

Is this thing really capable to carry Jeb?

[TimePeriod]

Dear god... This is... Jeb...

Is this thing really capable to carry Jeb?

The best part, I can go larger. Still some fps to play around with.

- I can still lower my part count.

- lower some settings.

- Do a better orbit burn.

- More boosters.

Probly some other things to increase final payload and part count.

Edited September 16, 2014 by TimePeriod

[GreeningGalaxy]

At the end of burn test, i saw three purple things, and dont know what's... OVNIs?

Those are thorium hotspots in Kerbin's crust. You've got a KSPI gamma ray spectrometer turned on somewhere.

Once again, nice ship!

[FacialJack]

Those are thorium hotspots in Kerbin's crust. You've got a KSPI gamma ray spectrometer turned on somewhere.

Once again, nice ship!

A yes i just launch both scan, ty and ty

[Xacktar]

So... I built a plane.

In order to carry a rocket-lobster

[SpenSpaceCorp]

So... I built a plane.

In order to carry a rocket-lobster

We were at the beach

Everybody had matching towels

Somebody went under a dock

And there they saw a rocket

It wasn't a rocket

Was a rocket lobster

[Red Iron Crown]

So... I built a plane.

In order to carry a rocket-lobster

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/22839222192369065/38B1D70020BDFF9BD5D3CFC3A1D0C80E1C03A162/

How did you resist the urge to put Claws for its claws?

[NecroBones]

More modeling fun! More fuel tanks, aerodynamic pylons, and visual tweaks to the quad-nuke, and so on..

[Aragosnat]

Well. While trying to dock with my ship to refuel it so it can bring the capped roid into orbit I had a close fly by of a near death kind:

AS you can see. It is the same rock I was trying for. But, a tad bit to fast. Intetional and almost unintentional hit. Had 0.0 km on it so I had to guess and hope I miss while power slowing before tankfully missing then racing up to catch up to dock with it.

[xub313]

I found some time to play after over a month hiatus. I finally finished my Duna vehicle I started forever ago.

Here she is getting crewed up.

I used multidocking for the first time and it worked wonderfully. No wobble whatsoever. I took a long time to balance the RCS at all stages so docking was a breeze. It uses a single skipper instead of Lv-Ns so I can complete a contract. I think I have enough fuel, skippers are pretty efficient.

[TimberWolffe]

Today I discovered 3 things.

1. I really need to remember to check my fuel and not run out of it before reaching the Mun
   
2. 8 RCS thrusters can lift a fairly small lander from the mun to a low orbit in just under 15 minutes
   
3. I really suck at orbital encounters
   

[Duke23]

I finally did it... I've been looking for this anomaly since .23, with the help of SCANSat of course. Every time I'd get near it I'd crash my plane / rover / VTOL without ever actually seeing it. Also thanks to Modular Multiwheels for allowing me to build this diesel powered beast that actually made it without asploding or getting stuck, this thing went through some rough terrain.

Also stopped by Minmus for the first time in this career. I built a relatively lightweight system designed to carry the lander out there on a single LV-909, disconnect and land, then rendezvous again for the return trip. Except for one small problem... On a whim I had scrapped the docking port on the lander for weight issues, and also completely forgot RCS. So instead of beefing up the lander to make the return trip sans transfer stage I had a brain fart and just launched it anyway thinking I'd dock and head home. Turns out I had enough fuel to make the return trip using a fairly efficient burn from Minmus orbit and Kerbin aerocapture, AFTER I had rendezvoused with the other piece and made preparations to do a rough no-RCS docking maneuver, only to beat my head on the desk when I realized it was pointless. I'm still kind of perplexed about why it took me so long to realize there was NO DOCKING PORT. I could have already splashed down on Kerbin by the time I had come within 50m of the piece I had planned to dock with. Oh well.

I also made the ladder too short because the original design didn't include the Science Jr.

Playing around with balance using SAS before taking off

[JebNeedsHelp]

Today I summoned the Kraken while trying to land Jeb, Bill, and Bob on Duna. Twice. The first time I had no idea why, so when the same chain of events brought forth the Kraken the second time I went back and thought through my steps up to that point. Turns out I was trying to physics warp while my nukes were pulling lander fuel that crossfed through a docking port (whoops). For some reason that scenario overheated the nukes and blew them up - so much for getting the guys home, even if I hadn't screwed up the lander's fuel requirements. Ah well, back to the drawing board....

[Fendleton]

Terror in the skies over the Abandoned Airfield