What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Trentendegreth]

had to rebuild my save "null ref" error at my mun base....5 frames a sec...

[bitbucket]

Got the Minmus extension of my RemoteTech communication network going, along with resource scanning and altimetry mapping satellites in polar orbits. Now to send up a manned mission to Minmus to do science to it.

Also featured, two deep space missions in the background: a telecommunications relay heading for Kerbin/Kerbol L4, and a science/mapping probe that will swing by Eve on the way to Moho. Both were launched weeks ago (game time) and are over a million kilometers away by now.

As for future plans, here's the to-do list:

I'll have to weigh my options about how to do that last one.

Edited November 4, 2014 by bitbucket

[cantab]

Added some extra ground scatter to Eve.

[RocketPilot573]

I tested a VTOL plane.

Next time I build a laythe base this thing is defiantly being sent over there.

[JebNeedsHelp]

Got my first successful plane into its first orbit ever. I took capi3101's advice (but forgot about changing the tail fin) and first tried a long-distance in-atmo flight. I wound up halfway around Kerbin and killed Bill trying to land in the dark without lights. A couple of longer flights, dead Bills, and reverts later, I went for orbit.

Of course, Bill had to go EVA for a picture:

I royally mistimed my de-orbit burn, and ran out of fuel nowhere near KSC like I wanted. Fortunately, I had a nice big sunlit continent in my way to land on.

A question for the spaceplane gurus: When climbing, should I stick to the terminal velocity table like one does for rockets, or is there a different table for planes that I'm unaware of? As I headed for orbit, I had those flames showing up a lot, but I didn't know if I should do anything about it. (I'm still running a stock game, FYI.)

[Aragosnat]

Built this little thing for Halloween. To bad it is a tad bit late to enter it. Oh well.

Yeah. I know it is Minecraft. But, it is a Kerbal look alike pumpkin that will soonish be filled with TNT for New Years. I'll be farming creepers and witches while taking a brake from KSP.

Edit: Also it is fully rounded. Made all sides.

[Spatzimaus]

A question for the spaceplane gurus: When climbing, should I stick to the terminal velocity table like one does for rockets, or is there a different table for planes that I'm unaware of?

Very different table. Generally, you can run 10-20% faster than the terminal velocity curve even at lower altitudes, because the lift from the wings is offsetting part of your weight, and at higher altitudes you can't just go all-out above 15km like you can in a rocket since you won't have the raw thrust for it. Basically, watch your speed; if it is still going up fairly quickly, then you're probably rising too fast. If your velocity is barely budging at some point, you're going up too slowly. Aim for somewhere around 350m/s at 11km, 450m/s at 14km, 650m/s at 16km, 850m/s at 19km, and 1300m/s at 23km; that'll at least get you in the right ballpark. (Depending on your intakes, you'll start to run out of air a bit above that point. My designs usually run out at 1600-1700m/s, around 28-30km up.)

And yes, that'll give you the flames at a few points. Ignore it.

[Cirocco]

Very different table. Generally, you can run 10-20% faster than the terminal velocity curve even at lower altitudes, because the lift from the wings is offsetting part of your weight, and at higher altitudes you can't just go all-out above 15km like you can in a rocket since you won't have the raw thrust for it. Basically, watch your speed; if it is still going up fairly quickly, then you're probably rising too fast. If your velocity is barely budging at some point, you're going up too slowly. Aim for somewhere around 350m/s at 11km, 450m/s at 14km, 650m/s at 16km, 850m/s at 19km, and 1300m/s at 23km; that'll at least get you in the right ballpark. (Depending on your intakes, you'll start to run out of air a bit above that point. My designs usually run out at 1600-1700m/s, around 28-30km up.)

And yes, that'll give you the flames at a few points. Ignore it.

This is a solid description of the speeds you should aim for, I go by roughly the same profile. One addendum though: when climbing up with a spaceplane, don't be afraid to go to 45 and even 60 degree climbs in the first stages of your ascent. I tend to have my designs climb at 45 degrees (60 if the engines have the neccesary thrust) until about 15 km or even higher before I start levelling out.

in terms of inclinations: start at high angle until at least 10 km up, then possibly shallow out if required and follow Spatzimaus' speed table.

[smysha]

Can you see something here?

I'm docking.

And swearing.

[Gaurdsman111]

I started my new career, with the only "easy" feature being reverting flights, because i'm not THAT good at planning ahead

[capi3101]

A question for the spaceplane gurus: When climbing, should I stick to the terminal velocity table like one does for rockets, or is there a different table for planes that I'm unaware of? As I headed for orbit, I had those flames showing up a lot, but I didn't know if I should do anything about it. (I'm still running a stock game, FYI.)

Both Cirocco and Spatzimaus have given you sound advice for the lower part of the ascent (myself, I kick it up to 55-60 degrees for the first 10,000 meters - with the hope that the prograde marker will get up to at least a 45 degree angle - and then bring it down to 45 degrees afterwards before following the speed profile given). I will mention that, having flown your plane, yours will kick over to closed cycle mode around 26,000 meters (a bit low for the comfort of most spaceplane enthusiasts - if you want it to be higher up when it kicks over, add some more intakes - the general rule of thumb is three Ram Air Intakes per engine). When I flew it, it was going about 1750 m/s when that happened. When a RAPIER equipped spaceplane does that, it's a rocket at that point; you'll want to close the intakes and pull up to about 45 degrees so you can get out of the atmosphere as quickly as you can.

Guideline for landing at KSC - put a flag out on either end of the runway, just off the little raised area so the game doesn't think it's debris. Put a maneuver node such that the periapsis is about 44,000 meters above either flag (assuming you're in a 100x100 orbit; go for a slightly higher periapsis if you're in a lower orbit, or vice versa), and then if you're more than a minute or two from that node move it ahead about 1 degree per additional minute. Burn to retro as indicated, go ahead and switch your plane's engine back to air-breathing mode and open the intakes. You should wind up in the vicinity of KSC at a minimum - and if you're spot on, you should be able to glide right in. Myself, I haven't had that kind of luck just yet.

As for myself with KSP last night, I spent the evening farting around with the Waste of Time 7, a transporter VTOL airplane designed to take a habitat and two Hellhound rovers to the island in the center of the crater on the far side of Kerbin. Last night I attached the payload for the first time. Plane is still having control issues in horizontal flight due to how the wings are set up (structural issues mainly - they're twisting a bit due to insufficient strutting; I'm going to have to fix those soon). Still have yet to add the VTOL engines.

[hellion13]

Ordered a new machine to end my year long KSP dry spell. 21 days till delivery.

[GregE]

Launched my first mission to Dres. I'm still taking my first baby steps into inter-planetary space, so I'm testing methods and designs that I've never used before.

For this, I'm launching two unmanned probes. One is an Ion powered orbiter complete with SCANsat equipment. The other will be a traditional liquid fuelled lander, but with a SRB transfer stage.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I soon realized that I had made a significant error in my DeltaV calculations. Although I did use a transfer calculator, it appears that the transfer window that Kerbal Alarm Clock gave me requires more DeltaV than the calculator I used. Or (more likely), I just suck at planning transfer burns. Let's just go with I suck at transfer planning.

Both will likely end up as fly-by missions, as I don't think either one has enough DeltaV to insert themselves into orbit.

[NecroBones]

I'm back to making a few more niche parts. A poodle-like (in terms of stats/role) 3.75m engine ("Terrier"), and a 1.25m rocket cargo bay.

Edited November 4, 2014 by NecroBones

[InterCity]

I'm just toying around with spaceplanes, because I'm too dumb to make a working space shuttle. Everything I tried so far ended up:

a) Tipping over, because the CoM was off the axis of the space shuttle assembly

Incredibly Inefficient and generally unable to reach orbit, as I had to strap the stuff symetrically to end up with something actually useful, and even then it looks like a rocket, that's something I wanted to avoid

c) A random combination of above

However, I came up with some nice plane designs: With a few tweaks and kickstarts here and there, they might be actually spaceworthy, but now they were confiscated by Jeb as his new Business-Jet fleet:

[Commander Jebidiah]

I'm just toying around with spaceplanes, because I'm too dumb to make a working space shuttle. Everything I tried so far ended up:

a) Tipping over, because the CoM was off the axis of the space shuttle assembly

Incredibly Inefficient and generally unable to reach orbit, as I had to strap the stuff symetrically to end up with something actually useful, and even then it looks like a rocket, that's something I wanted to avoid

c) A random combination of above

However, I came up with some nice plane designs: With a few tweaks and kickstarts here and there, they might be actually spaceworthy, but now they were confiscated by Jeb as his new Business-Jet fleet:

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

thats a very nice Plane There

[capi3101]

I'm just toying around with spaceplanes, because I'm too dumb to make a working space shuttle. Everything I tried so far ended up:

a) Tipping over, because the CoM was off the axis of the space shuttle assembly

Incredibly Inefficient and generally unable to reach orbit, as I had to strap the stuff symetrically to end up with something actually useful, and even then it looks like a rocket, that's something I wanted to avoid

c) A random combination of above

However, I came up with some nice plane designs: With a few tweaks and kickstarts here and there, they might be actually spaceworthy, but now they were confiscated by Jeb as his new Business-Jet fleet:

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

Shuttles are a royal pain; anything they can do you can usually do easier with a regular rocket. I suppose that's the challenge...

Nice looking plane. Definitely atmospheric only...though I image if you were to replace the jets with RAPIERs and add some intakes (say, another twenty or so of those Structural Intakes), that design might make orbit. I'd have to look to see how well balanced it'd be through it's flight to say for sure, though.

[moogoob]

Yesterday, I opened my second career save after a crash (computer, not spacecraft. I'm a better pilot than that. ) to find out that the Kraken had eaten Jeb. Turned respawns off, too. At least I got to keep the science I'd collected before the crash.

My next flight used Philgar, as neither Bill nor Bob were willing to go first.

[AengorKerbow]

I'm docking.

And swearing.

Me too. I was docking to my space station to fill up the tanks for my, perhaps ill conceived, orbital gas station. I managed, through my most efficient accent yet, to get a full KD S3 14400 tank into orbit, ready to dock with my space station. Unfortunately I kept getting the docking error.

I had run into it before and read about doing a quicksave, going into the persistent file, modifying "state = Acquire" to "state = Ready" and reloading, and that has always worked before. But this morning it failed over and over. Every time I reloaded it would go straight back to "state = Acquire". I was about to give up, when I poked around in the quicksave file itself, and found the "state = Acquire". I changed it in both places, reloaded, and was then able to dock and transfer the fuel.

So now I've got 16k/20k LF/Oxidizer in orbit around Kerbin for any mission I might need it for. Probably overkill, but oh well.

[JebNeedsHelp]

Thanks again for the advice regarding my spaceplane, guys.

[InterCity]

I'd have to look to see how well balanced it'd be through it's flight to say for sure, though.

It's pretty balanced, flying straight itself pitched about 5 degrees up, but I edited the cfg for the swept wings, since I hate how it looked without them. It's however really touchy and prone to stalling at low speeds, and tumbles out of control if I steer at high speeds. Also due to its gliding properties (low lift), it has to be landed at about 130 m/s to avoid hammering the gear and losing engines. Generally it behaves like a rusty flying pressure tank unless handled with care.i. Not the best plane I've ever made, but definitely the most stylish.

[Concentric]

Using Bastion. I've made a small plan for my next two missions: a second Mun landing, and then a Minmus landing that'll leave a probe behind in orbit. To do this, I put together a small lander, a probe, and a transfer stage, sized so that transfer stage and the probe-lander combination each fit inside a single large MK2 cargo bay. I'm not 100% certain the lander will manage to land on Mun and return to dock, but it can take the probe with it - it doubles as a small auxiliary fuel tank. Haven't done any calculations, but with that, I think it's probably overfuelled.

Above you can see the transfer stage getting out of the plane and the plane returning home. It still had a little fuel leftover when it landed, so the fuel cost of putting up that transfer stage was 1362 funds. Before sending the plane home, I docked the transfer stage (no RCS) to Bastion and refilled it from the plane's tanks.

The plane is my new cargo plane, the Goose. It can dock with Bastion (150km), leave 3.61t (the mass of the transfer stage - more is likely), and return to the runway with fuel to spare. The maximum possible fuel cost of such a flight is 1541 funds. The reason I opened the cargo bay before takeoff was to disable fuel crossfeed from the payload - it also gives a glimpse of the payload itself.

The Goose docked with Bastion and released its (slightly lighter) payload. Then I docked said payload to Bastion and refilled its monopropellant from the Goose's tanks. Additionally, on both flights, Jeb flew up with a partner who he left on the station. I probably need a dedicated crew shuttle...

It wasn't the most efficient of returns, but there's a considerable amount of fuel left anyway. Fuel cost of this flight: 1212 funds. So, leaving aside the cost of the payloads themselves, that brings the total cost of putting them up to 2574 funds. Not bad.

The probe core and batteries of the probe-tank component are clipped within the tank itself so that I could actually fit docking ports on both ends of the tank and still get it into the bay. Shouldn't be problematic, I think. Additionally, the lander has no parachutes, as I intend to dock it back to Bastion between the Mun and Minmus missions to refuel - as it's intended to return to the station and not to Kerbin's surface, parachutes are entirely unnecessary.

And here's the station with the docked ships.

[malkuth]

Finishing up work on Version 1.09 of Mission Controller. Added new Civilian Landing Contract that I'm try to test out. But I made the test mission harder then it needed to be.. Woopss.

malkuth..

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Lunaran]

I used some software to rip a ton of models out of the game. I wanted to look at the 3-seat MK1-2 pod and explore what a clean, stock-alike remake would look like with the hatch aligned with the ladders on every other part and the 3 kerbals all sitting side by side the way God and James Webb intended. Why aren't they already side by side, I asked? Why does one guy have to sit down in the basement?

I then learned that Kerbals don't sit side by side in the existing Mk1-2 pod because their helmets are too big. :|

This is also why IVA visibility out of each forward rendezvous window blows so hard - the pod only tapers by 50% from one end to the other, and it's just not possible to seat a Kerbal far enough to one side that his he can face straight out that window without his helmet protruding right out of the craft.

[qromodynmc]

Went to duna today,But actually I was preparing for two days,I sent this plane to orbit with rapier engine,then undocked engine,after that I sent another rocket with nuke engine,then docked in the orbit,then went to duna. Looks like I overcomplicated somethings but,It is for fun,isnt it