What did you do in KSP1 today?

[flashcactus]

Launched 4 satellites on one rocket.

The little buggers have just under 3 km/s dV each and are pretty cheap. Together with the launcher (which could totally be made a lot cheaper) that makes around 4.5K funds per satellite, with the typical contract yielding 90K funds.

Burn, baby, burn!

Popping the last one off

All sats launched on their respective transfer orbits, stand-by for launcher de-orbit.

Edited January 20, 2015 by flashcactus
spoilers

[GreeningGalaxy]

I abused some procedural solid rocket boosters.

Turns out those things can have a thrust as low as 1 kN, regardless of their size. Even if they're over 20 meters tall and 6 meters wide.

See that itsy bitsy little nozzle? No? here, I'll zoom in.

There it is. It's really small, and all the fuel in the booster can only escape through it! Muahahaha.

I stuck the booster outside and floated it off to the side of the launchpad (with some difficulty, even with gravity hacked).

I made sure the business end was pointed upwards, fired the ignition system, and...

The base of the booster promptly caught fire.

Okay.

Soon, though, the proper end finally bore the flame, and the Unnecessary Candle of Hope and Glory and Stuff was officially dedicated. According to Procedural Parts, the thing should keep burning for over fifty days. Despite its dramatic flare effect, it's not making enough thrust to be considered "under acceleration" or "throttled up" so I can switch to and from it as I please and carry out my daily space flights while leaving it to do its thing. Which appears to involve creating lots of smoke.

Of course, the booster goes out during timewarp and comes back on afterwards, so this thing will only run out after I've logged 50 days worth of unreverted, real-time flight in KSP, which, let's be honest, will never happen. So let's be real here, this thing's staying put unless I get bored and decide to blow it up or something.

The flame isn't even visible from the ground through all that smoke. You have to take to the air to catch even a small glimpse.

The EPA is surely on our case by now. Also, KSC is probably no longer observable from orbit, thanks to the smog. That's a good thing for some people, I suppose.

One last look at the KSC with its new expensive and pointless edifice, which somewhat resembles the Kerbal Eye of Sauron.

Am I happy with my decisions in life? Don't you wish you knew.

Edited January 20, 2015 by GreeningGalaxy

[NecroBones]

Turns out those things can have a thrust as low as 1 kN, regardless of their size. Even if they're over 20 meters tall and 6 meters wide.

That's not an SRB, that's a gigantic candle.

[Farex]

Greetings!

That SRB-Candle thing is AWESOME ! I think one could set up a beacon in orbit, just put two of them facing each other, lit them and tadaa, orbit-beacon!

I for myself have started my next big thing, the Explore Duna Completely project^^ with lot's of contracts and a mobile base. Two Scientists, two Engineers and one Pilot are in Duty right now.

[Kowgan]

How come we've passed through page 1337 and no one celebrated?! Happy page 1337.

[Liowen]

How come we've passed through page 1337 and no one celebrated?! Happy page 1337.

We did celebrate..... by moving on to another page

[Farex]

Wasn't it the Nicholas Page? *ähem*

Well, apparently I have waited to long in the main menu and the kerbal build a snowman -oh no please no! I mean, he build a castle. On the Mun.

I don't know why and how, but I like it^^

[ROXunreal]

Jesus Christ what have I done

I'll spend the next week trying to get this payload into orbit. But.....must....complete...station and Mun base contract....at same....tiiiiimeeeeeee....

I think it needs about 150 struts, first and foremost. And I don't think I'll be doing a gravity turn at all, rather just go up until space, and then and only then dare to turn.

[Liowen]

Wasn't it the Nicholas Page? *ähem*

Well, apparently I have waited to long in the main menu and the kerbal build a snowman -oh no please no! I mean, he build a castle. On the Mun.

I don't know why and how, but I like it^^

http://i.imgur.com/G4v8QEH.jpg

Toolbar Easter egg...or so I am told.

[Norpo]

Toolbar Easter egg...or so I am told.

I think the sandcastle is stock, the toolbar easter egg was a bunch of kerbals on the mun without helmets (The Mun Conspericy* easter egg)

*yes i'm too lazy to spell check

[fatjoe2015]

Was yesterday , working on a better version of this with chase cars and explosions ^^

[Tex_NL]

I think the sandcastle is stock, the toolbar easter egg was a bunch of kerbals on the mun without helmets (The Mun Conspericy* easter egg)

*yes i'm too lazy to spell check

Correct, correct and incorrect. The sand castle is stock, the 'fake' Mun landing came from Blizzy's toolbar and it's spelled conspiracy.

[Farex]

Haha the babbling is cool. Are there more babbling things for the chatterer?

[NASAHireMe]

FINALLY installed 0.90 (I'd been playing 0.23.5; too lazy to upgrade). Had to delete my GameData folder and re-run the patcher b/c I had duplicate parts in the VAB. Starting the game over is going to be fun, and it means this game will inevitably suck yet more hours away of my life, when I ought to be teaching myself to code or something useful.

Already completed seven basic contracts (just completed Kerbal-in-orbit recovery) and upgraded my launchpad. Building up my funds and science. Next up: Mun mission!

Btw, it's true, if you're an experienced player the higher difficulty settings (currently playing on Hard) mostly just make the game grindier rather than more challenging. But that's to be expected. Wish the higher difficulty settings had different contracts than the easier ones, or something like that.

[Slam_Jones]

Cleaned all the dust outta my comp and touched up the thermal paste. Now KSP crashes 100% less often!

In-game, tho, I was working on a few hyper-speed jetplane designs for a racing challenge. I can get em going ridiculous speed, but they invariably end of going into a flat spin (not even due to intake air) when I get close to full speed. Maybe 8 turbojets is too much for a 4ton plane?

Also been messing around with PartWeld, making bases for my water-bound Bases. Basically a bunch of structural plates welded together to make a floating platform.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Slam_Jones

[NecroBones]

Well, apparently I have waited to long in the main menu and the kerbal build a snowman -oh no please no! I mean, he build a castle. On the Mun.

I don't know why and how, but I like it^^

http://i.imgur.com/G4v8QEH.jpg

It's good to know it still exists. I've been playing for nearly a year, and fire up the game sometimes in rapid succession when testing new mod parts, and I still have never had the castle come up.

[Tankbuster32]

I finally completed the survey mission I accepted without cheching where the locations were. Turned out that I had to alnd in the middle of a mountain range on the other side of Kerbin, and I only had basic jets. This lead to me putting it off for a while, but now, after having lost my wings after landing three times, I managed to finish the contract AND return the plane to KSC with about 9 units of liquid fuel left.

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[capi3101]

It's good to know it still exists. I've been playing for nearly a year, and fire up the game sometimes in rapid succession when testing new mod parts, and I still have never had the castle come up.

In 0.24 after I installed LoadOnDemand for the first time, the Munar Sand Castle would come up every time. I was rather disillusioned when 0.25 came along and whatever had caused that to happen was corrected. I still get the castle every now and again...

[ROXunreal]

So I sent a lander to Mun the other day that was supposed to fulfill a rather easy base contract. This was supposed to be my second ever base on another body, after the big one I landed on Minmus the other day. Only 5 Kerbal capacity, easy right?

Well it's not easy if you're me, because firstly, I overlooked the tiny requirement that there be a damn lab incorporated into this base, and because due to not closely following the game's shenanigans when it comes to the crew and reverting flights, Jeb and Bill ended up being on this flight when they should not have. I needed those two back.

So I do what I always do, turn a simple rescue mission into a "let's cramp as many other things into this mission as possible and get MOAR $!$MO$NE!$Y$!$$!" mission. So the plan was to send a space station with a lab and seven capacity to space, send a lab to dock with the lander on the Mun and fulfill the base contract, and a pod with enough capacity and fuel to return three Kerbals home from the Mun. This all translated to building a damn unstable module totem that I posted a VAB screenshot of on the previous page and that god only knows how actually got to orbit without breaking into a dozen pieces (liberal usage of 8x symmetry struts was involved).

Yeah this payload looks totally plausible.

This was with FAR, that I have found only makes the game easier, not harder, because unless one has a total lack of common sense when it comes to aerodynamics or finds it too challenging to strap on two pairs of winglets to the bottom of the rocket, it's beyond easy to get big payloads into orbit compared to stock.

The payload fairings blossoming in the afternoon sun.

The payload itself. The leftmost set of struts I removed because I didn't notice that this section does not decouple and that they obstruct the docking ports (and just look plain ugly) - this screenshot is from a reverted flight.

I released the station into a LKO of about 120km, view from the station.

And the station itself from the outside. This is the second station I put in orbit, ever. The first one is a tiny one around Minmus.

The rest of the craft set out to the Mun, to land the wheeled lab near the lander/base and connect to it.

It took me only about 8 quickloads to land this thing without breaking a rover wheel (first time ever that I'm using rover components.)

After a successful landing 900 meters away, I slowly drove this horribly unstable monument to impracticality to the base. Then it turned out that, despite my best efforts, I did not gauge the elevation of the docking ports properly in the VAB and that the one on the lab was a bit too high - enough to prevent successful docking. I could not place it any lower in the VAB and still have the wheels like this. Right before I thought I would have to re-do this entire mission because of this problem, an idea came to mind. I parked docking port to docking port, switched to the lander and used what little fuel it had to slooooowly ascend by a couple dozen centimeters - enough that its docking port comes into horizontal alignment with the one on the lab and click - it docked

After sending their regards, the kerbals parted, with just a idontcareabouthisname scientist staying behind.

My base was kind of see-sawish because of the whole docking port misalignment, the outer two lander legs and lab wheels were not resting firmly on the ground, so what I did was get in the pod and use SAS to tilt the whole contraption onto the wheels (lifting the entire lander off the ground slightly) and then slowly drive it to the start of a gentle, barely noticeable slope, where I rested the lander portion to compensate for the lack of its leg length compared to the lab wheels. The end result is a pretty ugly little base where my Kerbal scientist will have a lot of lonely time to wallow in total loneliness and lose his mind completely.

Meanwhile, the three Kerbals that left had just barely enough fuel to make it to Mun orbit, and now await rescue. Should be a piece of cake, unless of course I decide to explore Moho on the way.

[Jouni]

I visited Moho with my new interplanetary ship.

[Liowen]

SO I learned today that my Moho Lander has the dv to land, but it seems like the twr is too low to slow it down enough. Currently it has one 48-7S with four small outer tanks draining into the main tank, but I think now I may need to add engines to the outer tanks as well. Or maybe just use the LV-909 in the current configuration. Not too sure what idea would be better to use at this point though.

[tygoo7]

Captured my first asteroid today. I named it Balboa and now Kerbin has a 3rd moon!

[Gargamel]

Built a Kethane "super tanker" and refinery. Turns out it holds about 2/3 of the deposit I have at the KSC. Then they both drive fine empty..... but when they're full.... not so much.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Launched the core of what will be my first (even) Mün base into LKO. It now awaits the launch of the cargo lander before the entire stack departs for the Mün. This will be a dry run for a long-term mission to Duna, which in 6.4x should be quite the challenge, even reusing tested hardware. And right after launch, KSP died, wiping out all my in-progress contracts, AND the 80-day launchpad refurbishment, so I guess that's a draw.

[LordFerret]

Went out to Jool with a SCANsat, first time I've been out there since v.24.2 ... mission failure. As I came in, I retracted the solar panels for just a touch of aerobraking, but forgot to extend them afterward. By the time I realized it, too late, there was no Energizer Bunny available to help me out ... batteries went dead. The second pass put it into Jool. Tomorrow I'll try again.