What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Good_Cat]

Testing continues for the Moth Mk2 - Ion Dropship.

Cupcake...

https://i.imgur.com/6KoXfZM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Qnih32P.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/qn7WKe6.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/IrE28Gr.jpg

As always your stuff is awesome, more rep.

[Esme]

My second Joolian mission did at least succeed in getting its lander down onto Laythe and an orbiter happily mapping it, although one of the three probes had to be sacrificed due to excessive fuel use getting the probes inserted into the Joolian system. The experience has been good though, I'll be much better prepared for future missions to Jool!

[Rath]

Landed my first probe on eve!

[TrooperCooper]

The KSA made its way to Minmus. More details here.

[Hyomoto]

Jebediah's out in the Badlands again, testing out the KR-1.

[justidutch]

I have a story to tell, but it's long. So here's the point form, and you can check out the spoilers for the details if you have nothing better to do:

1) Accept contracts for Ike exploration, satellite around Duna and science around Kerbol

2) Build and launch ship

3) Ship breaks in deep space

4) Send mission to rendezvous

5) Game starts glitching

In my new career (hard settings but with revert + quicksaves) I got the Explore Ike contract, and at the same time a contract to set up a probe around Duna. A third contract was there to collect science around the sun. Perfect, I can kill three birds with one rocket, and make about a million kerbitsBucksUnits doing it. I spent a lot of time designing and testing the vessel, deciding it should be a science base. I don't have any docking ports unlocked yet, so it wouldn't be feasible, or at least easy, to do a return mission. But why not make it a permanent base, I haven't tried out the new daily remote science thingy. And then it would beg for another mission to go get the dudes at a later date; always fun.

So I built this ship. Just before I launched it, I said to myself: "self, why not slap on some tanks and engines onto the top part where the lander can and sciency bits are and make it detachable, so it can hop around Ike and gather science, returning it to the lab?". A good last minute addition. And on top of that is the probe that will handle the Duna contract. Three ships in one, good to go.

I got to orbit with a fantastic gravity turn (perhaps my best ever - you can really save a lot of delta-V!), plotted a gravity slingshot around the moon (Ike was not lined up for a good transition but I didn't want to wait), and found myself in deep space with an inclination matching Duna (after a very small adjustment), and pushed my apoapsis to intersect Duna's orbit. All good, I may have to wait a full orbit to get to a point where I can plot an intercept, but Kerbals would rather wait in space for that kind of thing than on the ground. But while I'm waiting, why not fulfill that contract to collect science around Kerbol. So, I open container that holds the little sciency bits on the hopper, and notice that it clips through the tanks I added last minute. It shakes and shudders, but holds together. Darn it, I hate that. That's what you get for last minute additions; that is management doing something without consulting the engineering section, bypassing quality control. But I perform the experiments and send out Bob to collect the data and reset the instruments. All good.

So, I says to myself I says "self, why not see what other missions I can get going while I wait to set up the Duna encounter?" Quicksave. Back to mission control I go, to administration, the tracking station, etc. But after further contemplation, "nah, one mission at a time is enough for me. Although rockets here are built in a day, Rome wasn't, so…" Enter tracking station, focus on Ike mission, fly vessel. Ka-BLAM!!! What the? Crap, I guess the clipped container blew things apart! Maybe if I reload the quicksave; hold F9… Ka-BLAM!!! Megacrap. Rage, rage, rage-quit against the dying of the mission… no. No I will not rage-quit. Ok, what can I salvage? The main ship is mostly intact, including the main engines, gas tanks, science module and habitat. But the lander-can with batteries and experiments have disassembled, and are slowly floating away. Jeb, exit the lander-can and make your way back to the ship - good thing there's two free bunks in the habitat! Oh look, the Duna probe is still intact, in one piece and totally functional! It'll be able to rendezvous with Duna but I have no idea if it has the delta-V to slow down into orbit. Probably, but I'm too lazy to break out the calculator right now. I'll just see when the time comes. But what to do about the Ike mission???

Now, once before in my KSP history have I attempted to intercept with another ship in deep space. Couldn't do it, impossible. Like, needle on another planet's haystack sort of impossible. But I found a willing rookie one-star pilot willing to sacrifice her life. Or at least her free time. So, with the remaining science I had saved up (I don't always spend it in one place) I researched the Claw. Built a simple ship: lots of gas, and a section that will detach with a new lander can and sciency bits. Launch. Get to orbit, plan trajectory and full-throttle. Upon leaving Kerbin's SOI, I plan and execute a trajectory that gets me to within 12,000 km but at about a 30* angle of the Ike mission ship. But we're learning stuff here, lets try it. About halfway through the plotted course I make some little adjustments along the 6 axises. Intercept is now ~9,000 km away. And so on and so forth. I would stop time-warping every time I reached halfway through the remaining course, stop the time-warp, and rotate to prograde and see if going forward or backward would get the intercept any closer, and do the same with normal-antinormal and the other axis (the light blue one) as well. And wouldn't you know it, by the time the intercept was a few days away, I got it to within 5 kilometres! The relative velocity was still rather extreme, like 2,200 m/s, but I had just enough delta-V to pull that off.

I haven't felt this proud of a KSP accomplishment since the very early days, perhaps my first Mun landing. Crazy stuff! The Claw docking went without a hitch, I placed it right at the front of the Ike mission vessel, basically replacing the same bits that blew off.

So, my mission can resume, after almost an entire Kerbal year passed waiting for the rescue ship. The mission is now two ships: the fixed-up original and the spontaneously separated probe. But all is not well, at least from the gameplay perspective. The story part is fine, things are progressing nicely. I have managed to get both the ship and the probe almost into stable Duna orbits. Doing this, however, has been very frustrating as switching from the one vessel to the other is causing my game to glitch. If I adjust the course of one vessel and time-warp, this vessel stays stationary in the map while the other proceeds normally. I have to quit the game and reload, then it works for a bit, then starts to glitch again. It's very strange and makes me want to give up. I won't, but I'll probably wait a few days to simmer down.

I have to get the probe into the correct orbit in respect to the contract's specifications, then I have to land the Ike mission on the ground. But the way the game is handling this it will take me hours and hours of setting a course, executing it, exiting the game and restarting. I will submit a bug report if this keeps happening.

Edited May 25, 2015 by justidutch

[Richy teh space man]

Made this after playing around with space planes today:

Got it to orbit, can carry 12 passengers as well as cargo. It's main stream service will depend on it landing successfully.

[Jouni]

I returned to my career mode game and flew a mission to Ike.

The mission had to be single launch, because I hadn't unlocked docking ports yet. It took some time to figure out how to get the Mk1-2 command pod to Ike and back within the 140-tonne limit.

[4a6562]

Sent a probe to Jool, put a satellite in polar orbit around Kerbin to collect EVA science over biomes, brought a couple guys home from Mün outpost after sitting there for 2 years since they were running low on snacks and started a science mode game.

[hazard-ish]

I spent a day messing around with the aerodynamics system - from removing all aerodynamic forces entirely and docking to my space station in a 500 metre orbit to multiplying the drag value by over 1,500,000 for... interesting results.

I complied my experiences into a light heated video that hopefully some of you will enjoy. I would appreciate it if anyone here checked it out!

[xrayfishx]

For a long time I've wanted to try building these crazy rocket designs that shouldn't really work, but I've been playing too realistically, too efficiently, and most importantly, I haven't set myself a good challenge that could use a crazy design. Today I overcome all of these problems and the result was an attempt to land 100 kerbals on the Mün at once.

The rocket design needed only two minor improvements to get from an untested rocket to a working vehicle. One fix was tilting the boosters that, as you will see, are tilted. The second was a bit of vertical strutting to reduce bending. Then it took me a few launches to get the now functional design to space. It would have been simple, however a couple of minor staging specifics had to be sorted out. Mostly it's that when I decoupled the radial boosters, I had to stop all engines and also, to make things go faster, I spun up the vehicle. That last bit wasn't entirely necessary, but it reduced some waiting time. Normally it would have taken a while for the boosters to get far enough from the rocket. However after that it was all easy. I reached orbit, did the typical Mün transfer, circularized, de-orbited, and, surprisingly, made a perfect landing - a nice touch-down at 1m/s. Then I started emptying the lander, one by one. I managed to get no more than 25 kerbals out (probably less) and then the game crashed. I never quicksaved (I almost never use that feature) and the save file seems to be broken. The space center and Kerbin under it won't appear when I load the save, anyways. If there's a way to fix this, please inform me.

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[ToothyTurtle]

I just started on rescue missions and felt that I had the hang of a few things.

I had low rep so got a land on Mun and send back science. Thought it would be was.

The Mun lander crashed with Jeb inside, managed to transmit the science but Jeb was standed.

Sent a rescue party including a scientist and engineer for experience. Problem it landed 4 km away from the crashed lander and I was feeling good.

Turns out there is no fuel for a return flight so I am contemplating a rescue ship for my rescue ship. 4 Kerbals stranded on the Mun.

Today started off so well!

[NonWonderDog]

Today, I used quicksave and quickload. A lot.

No, no, no! The flag's in the wrong place!

The control tower took forever because the gimbal solver apparently didn't like my design. It wouldn't roll in a hover, and trying to roll made it yaw in the opposite direction instead.

Edited May 26, 2015 by NonWonderDog

[Concentric]

Not just today, but in the past few days, I found I had a little time opening up, and then found that KSP had updated into release.

So of course, I updated, and started a new Moderate career, to get back into the swing of things. Alt-speed-dist records, suborbital flight, orbit, launchpad, astronaut complex, mission control and VAB upgrades, I'm sure we all know the drill by now. I've been trying to cram space tourism contracts in with my other missions, too. I developed a simple two-man drop-pod that gets down from orbit safely with no power whatsoever, if released on a decaying trajectory. I had a set of test contracts, and combined them with a pair of space-tourism ones as follows:

Test the TR-2V suborbitally at 80-94km, the TR-2C orbitally at the same, and the Rockomax decoupler on an escape trajectory. When combined with my drop-pod, a pair of suborbital tourists, and a probe core for control, I could detach the tourists when I tested the TR-2V before circularising, then run the other tests and burn the escape before the tourists re-entered the atmosphere.

The drop-pod also came in handy when combining tourist and rescue missions - or just performing two rescue missions at once. In the above case, I hadn't fit any solar panels to the ship, so I had to carefully turn things off and on again, and there still wasn't quite enough fuel to deorbit... but Lagerselle could use what was left in her pack to put the periapse below 60km, and then get back in before detaching from the probe.

I also built a rather silly looking 139t (14t of that payload) rocket to get this little number up to space. I'd gathered enough space-tourist contracts that I had four that all wanted Mun-Minmus flybys, so after a quick empty parachute test, Jeb took them off to see the sights. The plan is to use the Mun to reduce the speed with which they'll enter the atmosphere, reducing the risks of reentry. I don't have a picture of the rocket in full, but I lack the 2.5m tanks at this time. There was a cluster of four Swivels with a couple of FL-T400s each, above a six T400 stack with a Swivel, and attached with radial decouplers, six stacks of four T400s with Swivels themselves. This didn't get enough thrust, and was close to the borderline - three Thumper boosters would be too much. So I strapped two to the sides of the payload with more radial decouplers, and they got enough speed on launch that when they ran out, the Swivels could take over.

Finally, I did a little messing around and learned something about the damage caused by the RT-5 Flea. Unlike the RT-10 Hammer, if you put a Flea either side of an Okto, attached with their engines pointing in, the Okto will not be directly harmed. In fact, one of the Fleas (which, mind, have higher temperature tolerance than an Okto) will explode, and the other will shoot off, carrying the Okto with it. A little after the fuel runs out, heat conducted away from the Flea will finally do the Okto in, leaving a cooling, uncontrolled, empty Flea on a ballistic trajectory. If you try this with Hammers, the Okto will explode almost instantly, and both Hammers will fly away (or thrust into the ground aimlessly).

[Spartwo]

More drop pods

Settled the Atlas into it's new home.

Tried some door ideas.

Lots of this because even at 50km up the atmosphere pulls it with enough force to tear it apart.

[Jouni]

In my sandbox game, a little bird was learning to fly.

The VAB is tall enough that a plane can jump off its edge and fly.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Jouni

[Hyomoto]

Nothing spectacular, but always fun.

[Ianwubby]

Sent an Apollo-style mission to the Mun

On approach

Landed, with the rover I brought in the background

Those mountains in the distance is the rim of the mare/crater I landed in

The good ol' Shaanxi rover

Headed back home

Parachutes open...

Safely back!

And I already broke three of the four solar panels on the rover

[mythbusters844]

I played around with PersistentTrails (yes, I know this ascent is pretty steep. I was fiddling with the settings and I didn't really watch the trajectory)

Edited May 26, 2015 by mythbusters844

[Ninjahgoblin]

I started a fresh Career mode with some mods I like. Parts included

Putting together Space Lab 2020; I put up the crew area, science module 1, and two 1 man escape pods. So far so good.

[Kamuchi]

Missed my E class intercept so just went to have some fun.

Presenting a fully modular, self sufficient low gravity mining outpost with it`s own orbital tug to bring modules down for assambly.

Go, build, fuel up & go home

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ps; yes I know, it needs a tiny bit more fuel in interplanetary transfer stage

Edited May 26, 2015 by Kamuchi

[Fraggle]

Iv got me feet up in the MC and someone drops a manila folder into my lap.... and then scurry's off. With some hesitation I opened the rather plane container and read the latest contract request. "Build a Habitat on the Mun to house at least 8 Kerbals".

Well great, Im glad the guys asked my opinion before accepting this one. So.. off I went. Raided a few old pinball machines and scavenged some motors from old washing machines in the scrap yard and bingo. A mostly leak proof 12 Kerbal habitat with toilet facilities and mini fridge included. We also threw in some scientific equipment too. Seemed like a shame not to since we were going to the Mun anyway.

Just 6 hours from launch and the countdown is put on hold while they figure out a new landing site. Apparently 'someone' told Seecot (our remote science lemming in the Mun science Pod) that we were sending him some supplies, toilet paper and such. So we had to wait 14 hours for the mun to be in a better position to land this new Hab as close to the science pod as possible. We missed it by 5km. Which wasnt too bad for our math department.

Once down, we all held our breath as the ols washing machine motors whurred into action and the lander lifted itself from the spent engine, and then began its slow migration 5km NE to come to rest by the Science Lander.

Contract filled, cash in hand. Not a bad few days business.

[mikegarrison]

So there I am, with an orbiter circling Ike and I send a lander down with Val and Bill on board. I make a landing in the lowlands, then I hop over to the midlands and tag two different biomes. Then I go back to orbit, but realize I forgot to grab any science from the midlands. Well, OK, I'm not above using F9. Which I did.

After grabbing the science, I orbit again. Then I dock with the mother ship Apollo style (nose to nose). My lander runs out of monoprop so I have to switch horses in midstream and finish the docking from the mother ship. But I do, so I'm feeling pretty satisfied. Then I boost out of Ike orbit and drop down to Duna orbit. I have some contracts for gravity scans at high latitude, so I adjust my orbit to 70 degrees inclination while I'm still highly eliptical. THEN I realize I never turned off the lander engine, so this whole time since I docked I've been burning fuel from both ends of the rocket, just pushing against myself.

Doh! Fortunately I had enough in reserve I think I'll be OK.

[LittleBlueGaming]

I made it to orbit(with my landing gear extended until 50km )! It sure is an ugly beast, but I'm proud of it. Theoretically I should be able to land it too, but there is a kerbal at the stick after all.

[Hotaru]

My dad wanted me to show him something straightforward in KSP, so I sent Jeb, Bill, and Bob to the Mun with the stock Kerbal X, fully expecting to have to rescue them later. Turned out, in spite of making a mostly MechJeb-free flight (including a rare manual descent and landing), the Kerbal X in 1.0 makes it to the Mun and back with about 100 m/s of delta-v to spare, presumably thanks to the new aero causing it to waste less fuel during ascent.