What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Terwin]

I completed the Long-shot-1 and Minmus base crew exchange(multiple times until I remembered to save afterwards) and took the newly delivered tools around to the various landed vessels to remove the protruding engines and fuel tanks(slightly longer than the landing legs in some cases).

Then I took the Long-shot-1 up to collect the kerbal+pod in high minmus orbit.

While trying to rendezvous with the pod to be rescued, I discovered that the circularization burn for one of my last two minmus-base components was now outside the Minmus SOI for some reason, so I had to plot a new rendezvous and orbital insertion. Sooner than later as this vessel had my Fabricator and stock ISRU and I wanted to get those started as soon as I could.

I managed to get it in a fairly circular orbit of Minmus before running out of fuel, fortunately I already had the UKS refinery and logistics depot on Minmus and I could requisition a partial refuel from Minmus base to get fuel for landing.

While waiting for the fuel, I landed my replacement Pioneer pod and a separate minerals mining rig with it's own power and storage next to my Minmus base so that it could be inside the Slopes biome where there are actually minerals present. After deployment and starting the drills, I placed my pilot in the logistics rover and was finally able to start refining all three refined materials(the pioneer module also had refined materials storage which I somehow managed to forget on the other pods).

Once I also landed my fabricator with the stock ISRU attached, I was finally able to make good use of the 6 ore drills on Minmus station and shut off the water to fuel refinery(which was stunting the growth of my life support supplies)

After the Long-Shot-1 collected the drifting kerbal in a Mk3 passenger module, I landed back on Minmus to send them to the academy for some quick training and then headed back to Kerbin.

Due to the surprisingly low fuel cost to refuel the refinery at Minmus, I went ahead and refueled my Minmus scansat as well. Once the Long Shot gets back to Minmus, I think I'll klaw my scansat and take it to Duna with me...

Realizing the age and low uility of my Scansat-A orbiting kerbin(only the first scanner on board, no resource scanner), I sent up a replacement to scout out a good place for a refueling base on Kerbin.

With the utility of the Minmus base already proven, and the failure of the testing base, I went ahead and recovered the testing base(I intended to leave the logistics module in place, but oops), and replaced it with a simplified Logistics Refinery, consisting of: lots of drills, ISRU, and plenty of ore/fuel/electrical storage(along with solar power, and landing gear+jet engine to get to the grasslands a few KM from KSC where I have ~7% ore, and radiators for 1.0.5) As 14 drills were only managing ~1/20 of the ISRU, I sent an expansion with a lander can with a 3-star engineer and another 14 drills to get everything topped up and ready for use.

A quick rendezvous with the recovery klaw and the passenger module, with all 6 tourists and the rescuee on board made a safe landing on Kerbin(looking at the specs of the Mk3 passenger module(max temp ~2.3K, max collision 60m/s) I am not entirely certain it needed anything more than a nudge to get sub-orbital, but better safe than sorry(landed at ~6m/s). The single copy of everything collected on the Mun that was transferred to the passenger module provided a nice 5K research, letting me unlock most of the community tech tree nodes with parts I expected to need(ion engines, larger fuel tank, more probe cores, Narrow band scanner)

Tonight I am expecting to take the Long Shot back to Minmus to top off fuel and supplies before heading to Duna/Ike.

(may or may not also send 1-2 unmanned scan/refuel ships as well)

[Fearless Son]

I made a spaceship inspired by Jolly_Roger's "Reliant" model, but with an extended science suite and copula module at the rear for the ship's engineer to monitor the engines and ore-extraction augers in operation. It also gives easy ladder access to exterior scientific instrumentation, as well as manual deployment/stowage of the solar arrays and thermal control systems.

Pictures will go up later.

[McFarnsworth]

I used up an entire year's supply of struts.

It flies about as well as the real thing. (Caproni Ca.60)

[NecroBones]

This week I added 3 more colors to the 5m tanks in SpaceY:

[Xacktar]

Went for a drive.

XD

[Gojira1000]

I retired my Interstellar/OPM campaign - with a crew facing an 89-year wait to get to their next burn. Slightly sad, but 89 years is too many cups of tea, even on max time warp. Still, manned mission to Sarnus was a success!

[Draconiator]

Between exploring Dres with one of my two rovers, I am planning a mission to deorbit Kerbal II from Mun orbit, and replace it with a simple observation station. My Kerbs are not interested in the Mun...they have a pretty heavy presence at Minmus though....and Dres now.

[Vermil]

Mission Control last left the gals in a very neat orbit around Laythe. Well, we're very good on fuel so this will be the first Laythe mission (except for a small probe) that haven't used air braking to get into orbital position to land.

No reason to delay, Valentina circles the orbit at a tight 52km altitude.

(People observant of details may notice that Kronos_B has now got rid of 8 nuclear engines and 4 radiators. That's normal. The 16 engines are for Mission Control, who gets very bored during the extremely long burn times on the outbound journey otherwise. Kronos_X13, the unmanned dress rehearsal vessel, only had 8 engines and it was a pain. So Kronos_A, aka Kronos_X14, got 8 additional engines. These were not protected by heat shields though, and too heavy for Laythe takeoff, so they're ejected when fuel load has become lighter. Kronos_B, aka Kronos_X15, will also eject four of the remaining engines at Laythe takeoff, to reduce weight and improve fuel economy. They're still kept for the landing though, because they're the fixture for some of the parachutes and they might also be needed in an emergency climb-out, if the landing goes wrong - like water.)

Then we eject all the frontal heat shields we never needed, wait for the right moment and make the landing brake. Eject the final tanks, pull in solar panels and radiators.

Switch off the nuclear engines and activate the landing/takeoff engines. Doesn't it look like a lander now?

Then the gals are just passengers for awhile. The idea this time is to try to land on Laythe's Dunes, since I've always landed on the 'Shores' previously.

The hope is that that scarily high island ahead will be 'Dunes'.

Landing was rather frantic for once. The land was quite high and didn't leave much space to slow down. Valentina handled it expertly though.

She applied full rocket burn already at 12,000 and never cut off until she had all parachutes out.

And that was enough. Just about enough. Then it's just the last burn left, just above the surface, to soften the landing.

It used up considerably more fuel than planned though. I'm slightly worried about that - for the takeoff later - but Valentina hopes that I'll find that the high starting altitude together with the improved climb-to-orbit performance of the Kronos_B will compensate fully, when I've thought and calculated about it for awhile. I'm hoping so too.

Meanwhile, there she stands, the Kronos_B, on Laythe's surface - and indeed on the 'Dunes', above 4,000m altitude. Leaning heavily. But that's why I make wide landing struts.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Vermil

[Bev7787]

[ROXunreal]

Busy day in KSP today.

Made the first multicrew mission to Minmus, and the first one to visit more than one landing site - made three hops overall - slopes, greater flats and lowlands.

First mission after I installed TAC life support, it appears I brought about 50 times more supplies than I needed.

With the science I gathered there, I made my way to the Communotron 88 in the tech tree and built an interplanetary relay satellite, which I put in a high Kerbin Orbit between the orbits of Mun and Minmus, and at a 45 degree inclination. Only one so far, will make a second one.

With that satellite in place, I launched a small probe at Duna and completed a flyby contract. All the way to Duna for a mere 20,000 credits. This is the first time I saw Duna, even though as you can see it wasn't quite what I hoped for visually

Edited November 6, 2015 by ROXunreal

[BananaDealer]

So the last few days have been productive for my New Horizon game. I'm sorry I haven't updated the actual thread with actual content but imgur has been giving me issues with making albums sooo... I'm gonna make actual mission reports for each of the following launches, but as a bit of a prelude, here's some sweet pictures!

About 10 Kerbal days after the Explorer 1 launch with which the "New Horizon" Initiative was brought to a start, Explorer 2 was launched on a Juno-B rocket.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The Juno-B differs from the Juno-A, which launched Explorer 1, in that it includes a second orbital stage used to push Explorer 2 into an elliptical low Kerbin orbit.

Several weeks after Explorer 2, our program was ready to launch it's first crewed flight. Piloted by Jeb Kerman and lifted into a sub-orbital trajectory by the Redstone-01 rocket, MerKury 1 was truly a feat to go down in the history books.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The Redstone rocket is identical to the Juno line, differing only in that it has an inbuilt solid fuel stage for a longer sub-orbital flight. This allowed the MerKury 1 to achieve orbital altitude with an apoapsis of ~78km.

A few months after Jeb became world-famous as the first Kerbal to venture outside Kerbin's atmosphere, MerKury 2 was rolled out onto the launchpad. This time crewed by Valentina- the first female Kerbal to pass astronaut school, it was fitted atop an Atlas-LV1 rocket.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The Atlas' stage-and-a-half design put the MerKury 2 capsule and it's small orbital module almost into orbit, with a periapsis just below the planet's surface. The capsule's orbital excursion module allowed it to achieve a 160-by-76km orbit and then re-enter after one full circumference.

A week after that, we launched our first dedicated low-orbit communications satellite- BoxSat 1.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Launched on a Juno rocket with an Agena orbital half-stage, it definitely pushed the vehicles' capabilities putting itself on a 600km circular orbit. Nothing more than a metal box with some solar panels on the sides, a set of antennas connected directly to Mission Control and a short-range dish to facilitate low-orbit communications for our following missions.

With the advent of coloured TV and large-scale communications, the Cabana Corporation was contracted to launch 3 satellites capable of facilitating the needs of the planet for a stable comm network. With that in mind, we recently launched the first in a series of geostationary satellites.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Called Commsat-1 and lifted by an Atlas-Agena-SLV2, it can support 16 civilian broadcasts as well as several program-specific frequencies. Fitted with four powerful solar arrays, it has the capability of keeping the channels open indefinitely.

We really felt like moving on with the Initiative this week, so we sent a data-gathering satellite towards the Mun. Lifted by an Atlas-Agena launch vehicle, with the Agena upper stage being used for its' Munar injection and orbit-acquisition burns.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The Agena upper stage was decoupled in such a way as to crash into the Mun, providing us with valuable impact data. The final short orbital burn was performed by the Ranger's on-board attitude-control jets, putting it into an elliptical 2,800-51km orbit around the Mun.

[cantab]

Actually played KSP, as in properly did stuff, on my new computer for the first time. Repeatedly tried and failed to land my spaceplane, and I've deemed its current landing gear - a taildragger configuration - unlandable. I'll have to try a tricycle gear instead, but the problem is I need tall gear. The tall gears are heavy and mounting the smaller gear on a pylon or similar will affect the aerodynamics.

[Hotaru]

Haven't posted much last couple weeks, have been only playing intermittently in and around school and other things. Seems like all I've been doing lately is sending ships back and forth between Kerbin and Minmus, fuel going down, Kerbals and modules going up.

Shuttle Altair flew its first mission in a while, to deliver a science lab for Coalwood Base on Minmus and recover a stranded Kerbal and her spacecraft from LKO.

I'd been thinking of retiring the shuttle fleet in favor of reusable passenger rockets, but with the VAB running at capacity on a number of different projects and several new stations and bases under construction, the ability to launch 2.5-meter space station modules from the runway is turning out to be very useful, not to mention they're the only ships that can return large payloads from orbit. Even giving some thought to ordering more, the current two cargo shuttles can only do so much with a two-week refurbishment time.

Among a number of other crew-rotation operations, the crew of the asteroid-retriever Pequod finally came back to Kerbin on Spacebus Arnold, a prototype heavy passenger rocket.

A lot of ships came and went through Kilgore Station in LKO, carrying parts, Kerbals, and fuel to and from Minmus.

Lots of launches from KSC as well, including a new Super Aqualung tanker, Green. The VAB is turning around reusable rockets faster than the ground crew can refurbish the launch pad, even with shuttles carrying some lighter cargo from the SPH as well.

[Fluburtur]

I finally got out of Kerbin's atmosphere and seriously went to Duna for the second time (3rd time overall but the non serious was when I tried to see what my Mün lander could do)

So I sent a scan satellite there.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

My interplanetary transfer stage had 5000 LF and one nerv atomic engine but I managed to end up with 300 LF when in orbit around Duna.

Well, I will now have a way to spot a good place to land if I ever send a mission to Duna

[Tex_NL]

Finished a Minmus circumnavigation by rover. Visiting all Biomes and collecting science along the way.

[Jovus]

Finally made my first space-plane after the engine changes to 1.0.x Gone are the days when I could push turbos up to 30km...but it was weirdly easy after playing RSS all week.

[McFarnsworth]

I needed a giant heatshield delivered into orbit, so I built a giant heatshield delivery turtle/burger.

It even delivers two at a time!*

*spare heatshield is not included and is sold seperately.

[Draconiator]

Designed another rover to replace an aging one on Dres. It kinda flipped a bit too much, and power was an issue....so BEHOLD! Dres Rover mk2!

[magnemoe]

Designed another rover to replace an aging one on Dres. It kinda flipped a bit too much, and power was an issue....so BEHOLD! Dres Rover mk2!

https://i.gyazo.com/4b22c3dd3e8dc6dd446ce9ad3218cc5d.png

Could you use the RTG as structural elements for the wheels

[Treldon]

Save file(s) became corrupted, had to start a new career. Back to ferrying tourists and testing parts. Sigh

[magnemoe]

My Tylo SSTO works in tests

Now the isse is to get it into orbit, solution is larger boosters.

Found that the center 1440 liter tank is not needed, and should be empty then launching, however its nice to have for plane changes and similar.

It should work on Laythe too, managed to land but ended in a cliff I also laced airbrakes and parachutes.

the nose cone with airbrakes is just for Kerbin takeoff and Laythe operations.

Had to add fins for Kerbin takeoff they might affect Layte landings so more testing is needed.

Crew quarter and science module can also be docked on an LV-N tug for operations on the three smaller moons.

I would also like an base on Bop, with greenhouse and part fabrication and more mining but think the Jool expedition suffer from an feature explosion.

[McFarnsworth]

Thunderbird 3. Technically an SSTO, but no amount of reaction wheels, airbrakes, control surfaces, RCS or thrust vectoring can keep it pointing in the right direction without it looking like crap. So sadly it's for display purposes only.

It's almost like they never even tested these things before putting them in the show!

[Tex_NL]

Thunderbird 3. Technically an SSTO, but no amount of reaction wheels, airbrakes, control surfaces, RCS or thrust vectoring can keep it pointing in the right direction without it looking like crap. So sadly it's for display purposes only.

It's almost like they never even tested these things before putting them in the show!

http://i.imgur.com/MEq9Tqs.png

Why won't it fly stable? The top tanks should drain last. You want the mass to be close to the nose. A few discrete fuel lines or a fuel balancer mod could solve that problem. As long as it has enough dV of course.

[Generalstarwars333]

Well, I installed a TON of mods, which thankfully didn't crash my game during loading. I ended up having to get rid of one and i'll get rid of one or two more later, but it works, although it does crash more frequently than I'm used to. I was saddened that I didn't get the Orion Nuclear Pulse Engine mod, But I'll get it later. I found the missing parts from the BDArmory Addons I got, and I tried to make a WWII replica-ish fighter with KAX. It has an unfortunate tendency to flip, likely due to a combination of the COM, COL, and COT all being near the front, and the fact that the four elevons to a wing were set to pitch, witch I corrected in the SPH but have not had a chance to see how it affects the problem. It takes off fine, but pitching up more than a teeny tiny bit leads to it flipping, and it's usually to close to the ground for me to get out of it, if I can. Course though, the only time I can remember doing that was in a stock craft from the MK 2 expansion mod, the f-13 raptor, and that was incredibly close, with me pulling out succesfully less than a meter above the ground. I think I'll try to make another fighter that won't flip and/or be smaller, and put the new WWII Aviator Arsenal weapons on it, and maybe make a new landship with the slightly bigger by about five millimeters cannon and other turrets I got/replace my existing landship's chainguns with 20mm vulcan turrets. I've only played in sandbox since I got all these mods for fear of a crash in my career save and subsequent loss of progress and rage quit.

[Jouni]

I returned to KSP after a while. I haven't played too much since the summer, because the Mac version barely works with a minimal number of mods. Add any part mods, and you have to reduce texture resolution, making everything look blurry and annoying.

Anyway, I decided to endure the blurry textures, installed 64K and SpaceY, and went to the Mun. First observation: you need a 2x bigger rocket to go to the 6.4x Mun than before 1.0. Reduced engine efficiency certainly makes the life harder.

The Mun is still as flat as it was in the 6.4x Kerbol System.