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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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Huzzah! My booster is complete! Tweaked all the little config properties, and also added a thrust profile for realism overhaul.

It's not perfectly polished in every regard, but the properties are correct and it more or less looks the way it should :)

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Huzzah! My booster is complete! Tweaked all the little config properties, and also added a thrust profile for realism overhaul.

It's not perfectly polished in every regard, but the properties are correct and it more or less looks the way it should :)

http://youtu.be/HPl-VCoRQr4

Huzzah! Are you going to add the separation motors to it? That would be a dream come true. :)

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Landed my Minmus Base on Minmus, and cashed in on that contract. Also, found out that 1.700.000 km isn't low enough to get "Low orbit over the Sun". Well I guess my probe will have to take another orbit, so I can get it's periaps lower than that.

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@Valley You could try using KAS to refuel your ship...

Love the KAS - used it before. But I like to keep my mods down if I can and right now only use Mech Jeb. Now that I have an idea about how to use the KLAW I just have to figure out how to use it on the moons and other planets. Though, yeah, KAS is better. You can create ships that carry spare parts and everything.

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I have finished my manned campaign to explore Duna. It consisted of a 2-launch EOR system, the first launch was an Ares-type rocket with an unmanned 2-stage lander decked out with parachutes, much like Project Constellation's Altair lander.

The second launch was an Orion capsule (bobcat american pack) on top of my own S.L.S. They would rendezvous in Kerbin orbit, and head to Duna. A round-trip conventional-fuel Duna landing.

In all, I hit Duna 5 times, and Ike 8 times.

Now, I turn my attention to Eve.

My idea for an Eve mission is much like what NASA's was in the late sixties...using a "station module" (like Skylab) the astronauts could live in APART from the main spacecraft during the duration of the Mission.

However, to challenge myself - I made a rule that I could only use Russian hardware.

A custom-made lander, a Soyuz 7K, a Salyut station, and a 5M launcher later...I have my spacecraft.

S8KLmDV.jpg

Yes, the Soyuz launches upside-down relative to the rest of the spacecraft, because

I don't want to do an Apollo-esque about-face and dock halfway to Eve.

It has been tested twice, and makes it into Kerbin orbit with a good 65 percent of its second stage fuel remaining. This stage will probably be used for the Burn to Eve, and hopefully the Eve orbit insertion burn as well.

The station module has its own thrusters for the Burn out of Eve - and of course, the Soyuz's engine will be used for retrofire to return to Kerbin.

Tomorrow...I take this baby....TO EVE!

(Once I get the fairings on)

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Huzzah! Are you going to add the separation motors to it? That would be a dream come true. :)

You mean those small solids that are attached to the skirt? Currently they are just cosmetic, however I will make them functional after I've gotten the bigger stuff out of the way. Ideally I'd want to include them in the booster part itself, but that's if it's possible to have multiple stages and tanks in a single part. If not I'll just make them separate parts that can be added on.

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Jeb took my survey aircraft out for its first real spin, 1000km trip, rough terrain landing. Cruises nicely at 23k, but pretty unstable there without sas. At 20k she handles well. Main problem with this aircraft is getting it down on the ground again, still flies at 20m/s. Think I need bigger and better balanced spoilers.

Then I decided to try to get poor Fredrick home from Mün. His return craft only had 400d/v left, so ditched it at 10k after burning the last to get as much horizontal speed as possible. Grabbed the science on the way out and used 2/3 of the monoprop in the EVA suit to get into a stable low orbit. Where Meldas could rendezvous and pick Fredrick with the service module up just in time to burn for a suborbital trajectory getting them back home with enough fuel that it should be possible to land them close to KSC, if the chutes are stuck on good enough...

Back to the drawing board on my munar lander I guess. But I think I'm gonna try and build a LKO station after Fredrick and Meldas are back at KSC.

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Jeb took my survey aircraft out for its first real spin, 1000km trip, rough terrain landing. Cruises nicely at 23k, but pretty unstable there without sas. At 20k she handles well. Main problem with this aircraft is getting it down on the ground again, still flies at 20m/s. Think I need bigger and better balanced spoilers.

Then I decided to try to get poor Fredrick home from Mün. His return craft only had 400d/v left, so ditched it at 10k after burning the last to get as much horizontal speed as possible. Grabbed the science on the way out and used 2/3 of the monoprop in the EVA suit to get into a stable low orbit. Where Meldas could rendezvous and pick Fredrick with the service module up just in time to burn for a suborbital trajectory getting them back home with enough fuel that it should be possible to land them close to KSC, if the chutes are stuck on good enough...

Back to the drawing board on my munar lander I guess. But I think I'm gonna try and build a LKO station after Fredrick and Meldas are back at KSC.

http://imgur.com/a/LxVDm

What version of P-wings are you using?

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I finally got some play time with my civilian management mod and built a base on the mun with it and MKS.

ZAmkLMv.png

Base parts:

2 farm biodomes, 1 flight school, 1 apartment complex with civie dock (airport), 1 movie theater, 1 university, 1 mks hub, 1 power unit, and a robotic mining/processing rig that costed 1 million spacebucks to launch and land.

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Slowly mastering a 4-crew VTOL "Jet" (can take off vertically, and move forward)... nothing as fancy or as efficient as Cupcake Landers's VTOLS, but a nice one, which I'll slowly get to master.

ALSO, slowly dreading driving an unmanned Rover through 4 locales for Seismic study... AT THE MUN'S NORTHERN POLE (ALL DEM HILLS AND CRATERS!! *shudder*)!

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Over the weekend I finally got a FAR plane successfully into orbit. I have yet to try to bring it back down again, but I finally figured out why it was having issues with staying straight on the Runway - damn Nacelles weren't parallel to one another and naturally that's where I stuck the rear gear.

Began the process of "do it again to make sure my success wasn't a fluke". Got as far as "testing the alignment of the gear" before I had to quit, but the tests had not been going well up to that point.

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This weekend I successfully test landed on the Mun in my new atomic engine powered “Eagle†lander, so named after the Space 1999 craft.

I wanted a lander for small airless moons with an atomic engine for fuel efficiency to go to the moons of Duna, Jool, etc. But I didn’t like the klunky strut monsters the atomic engine required, and was worried about stability for such a tall thing. Then it hit me, if it could land on its side using “thrustersâ€Â, it would be very stable and could use regular landing legs. By way, I’m playing Beta Career mode with no mods., about 2/3 way up tech tree (Atomic motors just unlocked).

Basic design is a Single capsule (Jeb don’t do ride share) with a chute on top. The capsule is attached to an Advanced inline stabilizer and then a TR-18 stack decoupler. After reading of the problem from others in the forums, I also added 8 struts to tie capsule to stabilizer (I read the capsules can “fall offâ€Â, learning from others, very un-kerbal). This is followed by a pair of Science Jr.s on top of a FL-T800 fuel tank and then the trusty LV-N Atomic rocket motor. The four LT-1 landing legs, 2 at motor end, 2 at capsule end, also rotated to face “down†i.e. the same way the landing thrusters face. A couple of Mystery Goo’s, some solar cells and a Z-100 battery finished off the Mk 1.

For thrusters, I attached four RM-24-77 motors, rotated to all face perpendicular to the side of the fuel tank. My first couple of test flights were really fun pinwheels and I could see that turning the thrusters/atomic motor on-off manually would never work. Hmmm, I then moved the thrusters to just inside the “meatball†of the center of gravity (CG) on the display during assembly. I also added a pair of Vernor engines to the “bottom†at each end and a pair of RCS thrusters on the sides of the capsule, to use the “free†monopropellant in the capsule.

I then again searched the forums and figured out how to use groups to toggle the thursters and atomic motor on/off. Hooked the atomic motor toggle to “abort†key and thrusters to “brakes†key. Oops, “brakes†only toggle when you hold key down, try again. After grouping the thrusters to toggle on the “lights†key (U), I tested again.

Wow, it worked! Staged Atomic motor and Landing thrusters both on (with throttle at zero) then toggled landing thrusters off. Slowed and descended on the Atomic motor as usually. Thrust low, need to start de-cel early (another crash). But, it has enough thrust to make a controlled decent to Mun, so will work better on Ike, etc. at about 1000’ AGL, slow to stop, toggle off Atomic motor, toggle on the Landing thrusters, pitch over until it’s horizontal with the thrusters pointing down and hurrah!, it’s stable.

Landing no problem, very wide span of landing legs and low CG make it really stable (landed on a slope, no tipping at all. Note, if you rotate to point Atomic motor the right way, a quick toggle on/off can kill any sideway velocity really easily.

By the way, remember to put capsule door on side, so Jeb can jump up to it.

Take off was Kool. Toggle on Landing thrusters, inch up throttle, lift slowly up, hover and raise landing legs, up thrust a little, tip up a bit and toggle on the Atomic motor. Then hit Z and toggle off landing thrusters and away we go…..

Now need to move decoupler to keep Sci-Jr’s for recovery. Maybe add enough chutes to land/recover entire Eagle. Also, I’m going to add side mounted drop tanks ie.“ asparagus†staged tanks (400’s) to up the Eagle's dV from 4K to 6K m/s on atomic rocket power. Have to mount on top and bottom and drop just before landing. With that, all your worlds belong to us…. small airless one’s anyway….

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Always nice to visit Mun.

Yes, Using Mun for "sandbox" for outer planet moons. Note, the vidoe didn't show a lander with Atomic rocket main engine. I know people have built all kinds of them, but I wanted to do a sideways landing, the landing legs on side of fuel tank and atomic rocket pointed out the back. This design could also be used as a "hopper" to move about on surface. Eagle itself, without boosters for Kerbal launch, cost $25k. I made this lander with Ike in mind. For small moons,Bop and Pol, only two RM24-77 landing thrusters would be needed. For Gilly, you could probabily just use the Vernor Engines. The $25K does not include the solid/liquid boosters to get the 9.3 ton Eagle into low Kerbal orbit. It's 13.9 ton with two FL-T400 drop tanks to give Eagle a 6,770 m/s dV.

The basic thought was to have a lander that used an Atomic rocket for all of the orbital transfers with "drop tanks" so that it has enought main tank fuel on landing to make it home, thus able to return to Kerbin with no docking (I really need to learn how to do that.). The chemical rockets are only for Kerbal orbital boost. Using a dV budget of 4,800 m/s plus a 10% reserve gives a needed dV of 5,300 m/s. So I should be able to do with a round trip lander costing $28k with two "drop tanks". Don't know yet what the chutes will add if I try to recover more than capsule & Sci Jr.s

- - - Updated - - -

I'm a grognard (look it up) and don't know how to post a screen shot of Eagle. How do I put picture on net where I can then put in a url for the blog board to throw darts (solid fuel booster, of course) at.

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