What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Kowgan]

It's looking really nice, Tw1! May I ask what's that for?

[AengorKerbow]

I built my first ever airplane.

I took it to the runway, started up the engine, veered to the left, tipped over, and became a huge fireball.

I built my second ever airplane.

Took off, started to circle around for landing, fell like a rock into the ocean.

I built my third ever airplane.

Took off, went to the island, with the runway, off the coast. Landed successfully, got out, fell to the ground, realized that I didn't put a ladder on the plane so there was no way to get back into the plane. Recovered my plane, with the nice science and the nice airplane experience.

[Kamuchi]

A couple hours after building my new plane and setting off on a Kerbin Side exploration, I have just made my best crash since I`ve started playing ksp!

[MrOnak]

Doing the obvious thing while following @Philae2014 and @ESA_Rosetta on twitter as well as keeping an eye on a certain live stream...

[jake9039]

I made my first lunar flyby!

and cleaned out my gamedata folder(it was full)

[NecroBones]

OK, so... radial decouplers. I'm developing a love/hate relationship with these, but I have a solution.

I needed a larger one for my 5m/heavy lifter pack, so I made an aerodynamic-looking one, and tried giving it between 800 and 1200 ejection force. But then I realized that the bug with radial ejection causing the booster to be dragged inward is still there. The effect is proportional to the ejection force, so the bigger I made it, the faster my test rockets would get destroyed, and the less the sepratrons were able to fight it.

The solution? Small ejection force, but build the sepratrons INTO the decoupler! Works nicely! And of course, they can be fine-tuned with the tweakables. Also, the exhaust is non-damaging, so that they don't destroy your stack.

[Red Iron Crown]

That is a brilliant workaround for the decoupler force problem, very clever!

[Technical Ben]

Nice decouplers too! (Also much much better idea than "ejection force" in the code anyhow. No idea why Squad did not stream line it to that previously... give them the idea for legit? )

I managed to "save" a small craft heading for Jool. It was never meant to go there, but it looked like a nice destination... then ended up with under 500m/s dv... managed to aero break on Jool, capture in Laythe, and did not even need to emergency "splash down" as had just enough monoprop left to kick it into orbit.

[LABHOUSE]

Worked on my stock iss. First module in orbit zarya and it is hollow... I should have used rss and deadly reentry (had extra fuel and the stages that I deorbited some parts survived.

Again failed to figure out what the explosion is coming from on my shuttle (not weight). I will wait for the next module until the shuttle is perfected. The engines seem to bend the whole thing until it brakes so I need more than 10 struts between parts.

Edited November 12, 2014 by LABHOUSE

[Kowgan]

If I'm correct, firing any engine against the fuel tanks should damage them, even if just a bit. At least, that's what happen when placing the Sepratrons in that specific way. I guess that's why this kind of radial decoupler wouldn't be a good idea. We need decouplers with more powerful ejection force!!

Anyway. Today I finally started launching my Voyager 1 mothership parts in LKO (I know, super original name). Two modules are docked together; Will need at least 8 more launches to finish building it up. Destination will be EVE.

I had to launch the core twice, since the first one didn't have enough dV to stablish a stable orbit. Thankfully, I setted a launch escape system, and Jeb, Sheldo and Wilsen made it safely back to the ground. They couldn't stop screaming "AGAIN! AGAIN!" on the way back home, while recovering from the crash site.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Kowgan

[AndrewBCrisp]

Busy day today:

I landed a second Kerbal on the Mun in the Mun 5 mission. Wehrdas Kerman spent two hours in the Northwest crater hopping along and collecting rocks before returning to orbit and docking with the Command-Service Module (actually landed him twice as my first takeoff from the Mun went awry and I discovered my last quicksave was when he was still on descent rather than after his landing. D'oh!).

I also launched two probes:

EveProbe 1 almost didn't make its launch window, and my tracking station couldn't tell me for certain if it would actually encounter with its destination or not until a good 60 game-days had passed. The probe is also my first two-part probe mission, with an orbiter and a lander (contained in the fairing "reentry shroud" at the head of the spacecraft). It's still enroute, but it'll keep for now.

Explorer 2 is my first asteroid-rendezvous probe. For fun, I decided to use the O-10 monopropellant engines to propel this spacecraft. Unfortunately the asteroid I chose to rendezvous with has a very steep trajectory with respect to Kerbin. I burned through 2/3 of my probe's delta-V just to get into the right inclination. With a near-Kerbin intercept out of the question, this mission is going in for the long haul, and it might be a number of years circling the sun before Explorer 2 latches on to the asteroid. Ah well, they can't all be by-the-book successes.

[Kamuchi]

Made a log thread to post my exploding imgur albums so I only have to post pretty pictures instead of a bombarding album

[mdkendall]

Visited the old KSC. Wilbus found some of the ground scatter to be unconvincing.

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Had a fairly major accident in career while I was sending a lander out to Minmus to farm some biomes and it came loose during launch, requiring the first ever use of the launch abort system. It will put a dent in my funds, but we will carry on regardless.

[CelticCossack51]

I tried to get my mapping satilite to space. It took multiple attempts because I did not have enough power to run the Scansat parts during the night. Eventually I added more batteries and an rtg.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Wound up in an amusing situation just now, still futzing with this silly shuttle-thing. Zipping along at 78 kilometers altitude, 6.4x Kerbin so atmo actually ends at 91 kms. So not quite in orbit. Very low vertical speed. Air drag slowing the craft just enough that MechJeb has to keep farting the engine every few seconds, so apoapse never actually gets any closer. Time to ApA just wanders back and forth. Ran out the simulation time in KCT but I'm pretty sure it would have mushed along like this till it ran out of fuel.

So im basically in stable flight along the Kamarov line at Mach 19. I find that amusing. It's true what they say about FAR, once you "get it" you'll never go back.

[Tw1]

It's looking really nice, Tw1! May I ask what's that for?

Thanks! It's for this.

I had sort of abandoned that story, but reading the stuff about the space center development, and working out more efficient ways to draw it, I decided it was time to continue.

A couple hours after building my new plane and setting off on a Kerbin Side exploration, I have just made my best crash since I`ve started playing ksp!

http://i.imgur.com/DA3ZNdx.png

I'm assuming that wasn't meant to be used as a runway...

Edited November 12, 2014 by Tw1

[bitbucket]

That's no moon.

Stalking the rare elusive 1700 ton class E asteroid.

Get back here.

Packing 8000 dV thanks to those oversized jumbo nuclear engines. The whole ship plus lifter was 900 tons.

Now stay put.

It was going to hit Kerbin anyway; I just nudged it so it would aerobrake instead of impact, then lifted the periapsis out of the atmosphere once apoapsis was under 200 km.

Jeb grabbing a chunk off the side for the eggheads back home. Now what to do with the rest of it?

Edited November 12, 2014 by bitbucket

[Krupski]

Zipping along at 78 kilometers altitude, 6.4x Kerbin so atmo actually ends at 91 kms.

Sorry off topic but, how do you get a 6.4x Kerbin? I really would love to do that. Is it a mod?

Thanks!

-- Roger

[MartGonzo]

I tried to get my mapping satilite to space. It took multiple attempts because I did not have enough power to run the Scansat parts during the night. Eventually I added more batteries and an rtg.

ideally scansat's shouldn't see any night, at least not until long after they've done their scans

launch into a polar orbit at sunrise or sunset and it should orbit along the terminator for while until the planet has gone quite a bit further along it's orbit.

[moogoob]

Equipment/personnel delivery to my new career Minmus station - reusable lander (with Bob inside) and docking boom (with Monopropellent storage). Then tested the lander on a trip to the surface.

Previous mission brought three crewmembers - one station commander (not Jeb, he was eaten by the Kraken) and two lab rats.

The station itself was a Fine Print contract, space for nine Kerbals, a lab, power, docking ports and an antenna. It's coming in handy! Being able to reuse science bays and goo containers is astoundingly useful.

[astropapi1]

Sorry off topic but, how do you get a 6.4x Kerbin? I really would love to do that. Is it a mod?

Thanks!

-- Roger

Regex made a config for RealSolarSystem, but I think there's a guy making a mod compilation so you don't have to go through all the stuff we had to do. Just download and play.

6.4x is lovely. It takes away that sense of easyness and superiority you get after playing KSP for a while (you know, when you feel like you can do anything with enough boosters), but it doesn't take everything to the scale of freaking Earth where you need ungodly ammounts of Delta-V and time to do anything. It's a good mix in-between both stock and RSS.

Mostly, you'll learn to fly rockets with FAR (just don't move them too agressively. ), how to use RealFuels and the pros/cons of every fuel, how to design cleverly and small, and many other things that will be helpful for you if you ever decide to use RSS. One advantage it gives you over RSS is that there's no part rescaling. All parts remain the same size so it's way easier to get started. If you need any help, be sure to send me a PM.

It's hard but extremely entertaining. In fact, I don't think I've ever had so much fun in KSP as I've done with this rescaled version.

And to keep with the spirit of this thread, here's a CommSat on its way to a stationary orbit, although I may eventually move it to the Mun. It's crazy how much D-v you can pack into something this size with the right fuels and an efficent engine.

[Starman4308]

Sorry off topic but, how do you get a 6.4x Kerbin? I really would love to do that. Is it a mod?

Thanks!

-- Roger

It's a mod. The original 6.4x Kerbin is a config for NathanKell's Real Solar System. There is also the WIP 64k project by Paul Kingtiger which seeks to wrap 6.4x Kerbin together with config files for various mods in more cohesive ways, so you don't have to deal with as much hassle installing 6.4x Kerbin, particularly when it comes to compatibility with mods like Astronomer's Visual Pack.

Just, do us all a favor, and read the instructions before installing it either way. Also, if you use the 64k installation, I'd set Kerbin's rotationPeriod to 64800 (18 hours), because with the standard 12-hour day Paul used, you get too much of a boost from launching east.

Also, I love the use of RealFuels (and the stockalike config, plus FAR) for 6.4x: these combined get you "bigger Kerbin" without requiring absurdly oversized rockets.

[capi3101]

Built a working trebuchet. 100% stock except for an NREP weight.

Jeb didn't make it any further than that middle ring...I think it needs moar boosters......

(For the curious, the thing pivots on an I-beam, a small decoupler, and a cubic octagonal strut attached to a launch clamp on both sides. The test weight was set to 25 tonnes at the time of firing and the armature is seven XL girders, with the pivot on the second girder)

In career news, I sent my first Moneymaker probe to orbit last night via transporter spaceplane. I'm actually disappointed in the whole flight - powered by a quad of RAPIER engines, the thing didn't get past 27,000 meters and 1500 m/s before it switched over, waaay earlier than it should've. I'm thinking I had too much drag going on, on account of I used Shock Cone Intakes instead of Ram Air intakes for the design. Anyway, I had to borrow fuel from the payload to get the thing into orbit. This turned out to have no effect on the mission - to put the Moneymaker in a specific orbit for a FinePrint contract. Landing the plane was surprisingly difficult - this was a craft that handled beautifully without payload, and one that I was able to land unpowered during testing. I did finally land it - on the runway, but to spite me the game tore off the wingtips off for no apparent reason after touch down (seriously - I was level at that point, moving forward, wings poofed out of existence). I still recovered about √86,000 from the √106,000 launch of the vehicle. Going to have to figure out where exactly its shortcomings are before I try again - by all rights I shouldn't have had the problems I did with that plane...

[CatastrophicFailure]

Regex made a config for RealSolarSystem, but I think there's a guy making a mod compilation so you don't have to go through all the stuff we had to do. Just download and play.

6.4x is lovely. It takes away that sense of easyness and superiority you get after playing KSP for a while (you know, when you feel like you can do anything with enough boosters), but it doesn't take everything to the scale of freaking Earth where you need ungodly ammounts of Delta-V and time to do anything. It's a good mix in-between both stock and RSS.

Mostly, you'll learn to fly rockets with FAR (just don't move them too agressively. ), how to use RealFuels and the pros/cons of every fuel, how to design cleverly and small, and many other things that will be helpful for you if you ever decide to use RSS. One advantage it gives you over RSS is that there's no part rescaling. All parts remain the same size so it's way easier to get started. If you need any help, be sure to send me a PM.

It's hard but extremely entertaining. In fact, I don't think I've ever had so much fun in KSP as I've done with this rescaled version.

And to keep with the spirit of this thread, here's a CommSat on its way to a stationary orbit, although I may eventually move it to the Mun. It's crazy how much D-v you can pack into something this size with the right fuels and an efficent engine.

http://i.imgur.com/G6gVocd.png

What he said. IF you're ever starting to get a little bored with KSP, 6.4x is the Ren00bifyer. Just getting to orbit becomes a challenge again, and in Career mode it's a downright accomplishment. I've been playing it since .25 came out and I still haven't put a Kerbal on the Mun yet (the hardware is underconstruction, the lander/transfer stage launcher alone is over 2600 tons). You will either learn how to make very, very BIG rockets AND make them pretty, or how to make small rockets extremely efficient. I haven't messed with real fuels yet but I may have to.

It's a mod. The original 6.4x Kerbin is a config for NathanKell's Real Solar System. There is also the WIP 64k project by Paul Kingtiger which seeks to wrap 6.4x Kerbin together with config files for various mods in more cohesive ways, so you don't have to deal with as much hassle installing 6.4x Kerbin, particularly when it comes to compatibility with mods like Astronomer's Visual Pack.

Just, do us all a favor, and read the instructions before installing it either way. Also, if you use the 64k installation, I'd set Kerbin's rotationPeriod to 64800 (18 hours), because with the standard 12-hour day Paul used, you get too much of a boost from launching east..

Wait a sec... wouldn't a shorter day actually INCREASE the boost you get from launching east (shorter rotation period=faster speed at surface=moar boosters!)?