What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Spacepigu]

haha, i have never done that either.

[Fr8monkey]

After several tries and a lot of cursing, I docked two spacecraft for the first time.

That and the first time you land on the Mun... You will never forget it. Congrats!

[GreeningGalaxy]

After hovering under hydrogen VASIMR power and mucking around with MechJeb's Translatron for almost an hour, I managed to construct a KAS pipe tower on Minmus.

It was originally going to be one section taller, but the pipes and ground pylons are amazingly bad at sticking to the ground at the base, so I had to stop for stability reasons.

It is really quite tall, though! I'm proud of my Minmus tower, even if Kerbals can't even stand on top of it without the aid of their thruster packs and using it as the fancy aerial docking station it resembles would be asking for trouble.

Maybe next I'll build something more rigid that collapses with Infernal Robotics or something, because this was way too wobbly to be taken seriously.

[CatastrophicFailure]

More 6.4x shenanigans today. My ill-fated Moho probe finally made it there, sending back oodles of sweet sweet science while zipping by less than 10 kilometers from the surface at over 30km/s! Pic really can't do that justice.

And just like that, it's all over. The probe flew off into an absolutely useless orbit with not quite enough d/v to swing out as far as Duna. Farewell Moho, you delta-v-sucking, hope-dashing, harbinger of cuss words.

In contrast my Eve mission has gone amazingly well. This is the 60-ton transfer stage I needed to get it out there. Perfect burn-to-encounter, only slight corrections to fine tune peri-Eve.

Arrived there with plenty of d/v left, burned at peri into an eccentric orbit just reaching Gilly's. Made a few passes for Science! Then detatched the lander.

A slight hiccup with the entry trajectory (FAR & DRE), however, turned what was supposed to be multiple aerobrake passes into a nail-biting 11.5km/s, 22g(!) night landing. And I hate night-side pics! The heat shield did its thing tho and soon the lander was descending under parachute without having lost anything too important.

Landing was nominal, so nothing to do after that but deploy the solar panels and wait for sunrise (not that you can really tell thru those thick Evian clouds).

Then more Science!

And to top it all off I was hoping for an unplanned landing on Gilly (yes, that featureless brown sphere is Gilly in 6.4x) but looks like I may miss out on that. The orbiter has just enough d/v left but every time I approach I'm getting that obnoxious "flies away from camera" bug.

Edited November 7, 2014 by CatastrophicFailure

[WooDzor]

And to top it all off I was hoping for an unplanned landing on Gilly (yes, that featureless brown sphere is Gilly in 6.4x) but looks like I may miss out on that. The orbiter has just enough d/v left but every time I approach I'm getting that obnoxious "flies away from camera" bug.

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

Have you tried pressing the spacebar. From experience I noticed that flying away from the camera is generally caused when your COG is moving outside your ship. due to something going wrong during staging. By pressing stage you might fix that one faulty decoupler causing you the problem. Please press 5 first, before you [male chicken] up your mission.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Have you tried pressing the spacebar. From experience I noticed that flying away from the camera is generally caused when your COG is moving outside your ship. due to something going wrong during staging. By pressing stage you might fix that one faulty decoupler causing you the problem. Please press 5 first, before you [male chicken] up your mission.

There's nothing left to stage on that one. It's not burning fuel or doing anything at all at the time either. It seems like the camera is just instantly stopping in space while the ship zooms away at its relative velocity ('bout 1 km/s at that point).

[astropapi1]

More 6.4x shenanigans today...

... and I did the thing where you go around the planet in a tin can and then come back.

6.4 is fun!

[KevinW42]

So I'm taking a trip to Jool and Jeb decides to get himself stuck on Laythe, forcing me to scrub the rest of the mission. Bill and Bob now have a ton of extra dv to get home with, so I decide to use Mechjeb's Porckchop transfer and go with a faster trajectory than the usual Hohmann transfer. It sends me on a path that nearly reaches down to Moho's orbit before swinging around to Kerbin. When I arrive, my orbital velocity is over 9 km/s. I bring my periapsis down to 25 km or so and decouple my capsule, but I had misinterpreted Atmospheric Trajectories' output, so even after a 40g+ aerobrake, I'm still going well above escape velocity when I leave the atmosphere. Fortunately, the stage I had jettisoned had a probe core and over 3,000 m/s of dv left, so I was able to rendezvous with the capsule and push it into a closed orbit with a more sensible re-entry.

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[Oafman]

I built my first 2.5m thermal turbojet, antimatter reactor, plane.

My 3 kerbals died of excessive G force within 2 seconds of leaving the runway. I wonder if kerbals have ever died sooner into a flight.

[Organ_ic]

This was not done today, but I think this image has some deep feelings about whole KSP game, shame on me tho for not hiding UI

[Zilentification]

I figured the easiest way to solve my Remote Tech troubles was quantity. Instead of worrying about getting some good satellite coverage of Kerbin via a few well placed satellites, I decided to flood the sky and hope that it works.

Initial designs were focused on carrying a single satellite in a small, cheap and effective rocket. Thus the Baby Omni was born. A simple 3-Stage rocket that primarily used cheap Solid rocket fuel. In an effort to save on the cost per launch the 1st-Stage was designed to be recoverable in effect reducing the cost by over 50%! Sadly the 2nd-Stage, which would put the payload near LKO, was always too vulnerable to Reentry heating.

Although a successful rocket the Baby Omni had one major flaw, you could only send up one satellite at a time. Repeatedly flying multiple unmanned ships put other missions on hiatus and delayed the Mun mission by over a month. The public grew restless, they didn't want to hear about satellites, they wanted to hear about Kerbals!

To shorten the time needed to set up the network a new approach was needed...

Taking inspiration from a flower, one of the engineers came up with the Spore v1. A 2-Stage rocket that would place the satellites in LKO then deorbit. From there it would be up to the satellite's small SRBs to place them in the correct orbits.

Unfortunately, the Spore v1 was rife with design issues. The satellites were very exposed, forcing slow and inefficient launch profiles to avoid mechanical failure. Each satellite requiring differing amounts of solid rocket fuel to achieve their individual orbits meant the center of mass would change for every flight causing a headache for all involved. Finally the cost was insanely high. More than double per launch compared to the Baby Omni. After the 3rd launch suffered from multiple unplanned disassemblies the rocket was retired.

Meet the Spore v3. A small albeit long rocket designed to put Omni-directional satellites in orbits ranging from LKO to near Mun distances. The major change was that instead of relying on each satellite having its own engine, the main rocket would carry enough fuel to place them in their correct orbits. This made them much smaller and therefore easier to stack vertically, allowing for a protective fairing. Currently it only carries 10 satellites but recent test have indicated it should be capable of double that number with a more powerful 1st-Stage.

So far the Spore v3 has been a HUGE success. With current launch cost per satellite equaling that of the Baby Omni and possibilities for improvement right around the corner the Space Program is free to concentrate on much more exciting stuff. Such as the upcoming Jool transfer window. Although it is getting hard to find the ship I want sometimes.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Zilentification

[Wooks]

A 4 times Kerbin aerial circumnavigation under 25k m.

Short gif for guys with ADHD.

More detailed video for technical types.

[Bigbootie]

First ever successful space plane orbit. WOOHOO!

[Bigbootie]

[Bigbootie]

Don't look behind you.

[capi3101]

Spent last night generally out making money through lesser activities. Lots of flags, lots of crew reports sent back from Mun and Minmus, lots of crew reports sent back from orbit of Mun and Minmus. I'm up to √3,000,000 now - should be ready to fund my Duna/Ike mission.

I did do something of mild interest last night - I combined a FinePrint aerial survey in the vicinity of KSC with a sub-orbital TR-18A parts test with a robotic spaceplane design. I knew going into it that the flight looked a little short on oxidizer, but I went ahead anyway; missions were successfully completed. Now, what I should've done was let the plane come back down on the other side of Kerbin and use the excess liquid fuel to just fly back. What I did do was, after the TR-18A parts test, I went ahead and circularized the orbit thinking I could just deorbit in the right spot and come back in. Fine and dandy, dandy and fine...but the game was telling me the maneuver would take 50 m/s of delta-V and KER was telling me I had 15 m/s left. Once again, I did the stupid thing and burned. KER wasn't lying. Wound up with a wonky orbit with a periapsis just above 70k...

So...refueling mission!! Sent Jeb and Bill up in a plane heavy with oxidizer, carrying a winch and a KAS Radial Port. I thought the Liquid Fuel level was a bit short for the mission, but I went anyway...

Made a successful rendezvous. Jeb bumped the plane while he was getting the port in place - which I thought was no big deal. When I got him back to grab the winch cable, the target was over fifty meters away and the range was still opening. I did manage to get the winch cable in and docked and Jeb back to his plane - by which time the two craft were seventy meters apart. Doesn't sound like much, but that's still a hell of a spacewalk if you ask me.

Anyway, I got the fuel levels balanced out with both craft now (Jeb and Bill's flight probably didn't have the LF it needed to make a successful de-orbit, but at least they had RCS for backup - this way they have a little more fuel for flying). I'll try to land them both tonight if I get the opportunity. I'm just hoping I don't overshoot the runway when I make the de-orbit burns; I doubt either flight has sufficient fuel for a lot of atmospheric maneuvering. At least I know already that in an emergency a Mk-2 cockpit makes a pretty descent boat...if I can land it slowly enough......

[Theoderich]

I figured the easiest way to solve my Remote Tech troubles was quantity. Instead of worrying about getting some good satellite coverage of Kerbin via a few well placed satellites, I decided to flood the sky and hope that it works.

[...]

So far the Spore v3 has been a HUGE success. With current launch cost per satellite equaling that of the Baby Omni and possibilities for improvement right around the corner the Space Program is free to concentrate on much more exciting stuff. Such as the upcoming Jool transfer window. Although it is getting hard to find the ship I want sometimes.

http://i.imgur.com/17RRqoN.jpg

OMG, so many sattelites... the RAM, the lag..I definetley prefer my 3+1 kerbostationary approach ( The +1 is a longer ranged version of the other 3 to reach Duna and Eve.

[qromodynmc]

Having fun with propeller mods ^^

[NecroBones]

Made a radially-attached probe core, and pushed v1.1 of MRS out.

Also worked more on 5m heavy-lifter stuff for later release.

[smysha]

Caught NaN-kraken.

And KCT thought that this is simulation btw. But goddamit, I built that thing and launched into interplanetary space without any cheats and simulations!

[JayKay]

I wonder if that particular breed of kraken is associated with KAC. I had that happen when I switched to my Eeloo probe last week using KAC. I quit the game right away and when I reloaded all was well again when I selected the ship through the tracking station.

[smysha]

I wonder if that particular breed of kraken is associated with KAC. I had that happen when I switched to my Eeloo probe last week using KAC. I quit the game right away and when I reloaded all was well again when I selected the ship through the tracking station.

Maybe. Look at the mission time btw. T + -01: -34: -17. My ship just traveled in time.

[Slam_Jones]

-snip-

The NaN-Kraken caught my cruiser before it got to Dres a week or two ago :\ Didn't hyperedit or mod or anything either. The ship appeared in the Tracking Station as if it had run out of electricity (basically showing up as an unknown object (it had TRGs so it def still had electricity)), and when I clicked the Fly button, BOOM! Kraken attack.

[Esme]

Two days ago, I successfully manouvered a probe into circum-Duna orbit, the first time I've ever achieved that. Having collected a little near-Duna science, several orbits were made photographing the surface from a rather elliptical orbit.

This evening, the periapse of the orbit was dropped first to 50km, then on the following orbit to 25 km, then on the next orbit to 10km. Atmospheric entry went well, and parachutes were deployed at about 8km above MSL. Half of the remaining fuel was used to slow the probe's horizontal velocity, and the descent by parachute began. Descent speed stabilised at a little over 11m/s and the engines were used to slow this to just over 5m/s just before touchdown. Explorer-1 landed safely in a dunefield some tens of kilometres west of a very large canyon system. Materials science was performed from the surface of a body outside Kerbin's SOI for the first time in my experience of KSP. <grin> Darn, but that feels good!

[bitbucket]

After plundering all the science off Minmus, I sent up a rover mission to the Mun to scout out a location for a permanent base within acceptable proximity to certain resources. However, before setting off across the Munar surface, the crew paid homage to an unknown (to them) hero.