What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Deutherius]

I always place a flag at the east end of the KSC runway, so that I have a good marker I can aim at while returning from space. And while the brave kerbals aim high and fast, my runway flag decided it was time to go the other way - underground, all the way to Kerbin's core.

I wonder if this phenomenon could be exploited to get a manned ship gravity slinged around the core at insane speeds, somehow activating/deactivating the physics at will (just like in Fear the Sky).

[Musil]

Started a KSP graphic novel. Check it out if you like!

 

[el_coyoto]

Took my first 1.0.5 LF only SSTO to orbit on my second attempt, yay!
1250 m/s to LKO before refueling.

Still need to work the solar panels and radiators placement to get something better than the current "let's just slap panels as they come, it won't make orbit anyway" setup...

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2016 by el_coyoto

[kotomikun]

Been doing various random things in the vicinity of Kerbin, to kill time while waiting several in-game years for interplanetary missions to float through space (two heading home from Jool and Sarnus, one heading out to Urlum).

 

[el_coyoto]

Some good inspiration today.
I built a rover for an incoming Duna transfer window and tested a stupid idea for its deployment.

 

 

The nice thing is that the whole contraption is reasonably well balanced on the vertical axis (with the help a reaction wheel), but on the longitudinal axis as well : all I have left to do before departing to Duna is slapping a transfer stage on one side of the cargo bay, a heat shield on the other for the initial aerocapture and I'll be set.

Duna 1.0.5, here I come!

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by el_coyoto

[Evanitis]

I constructed an especially cute craft called the Itsy Bitsy Vtol. It's very low construction and operating cost is a bit overshadowed by the fact that we had to rebuild the VAB seventeen times before we could make the shots below for the press. The landing grider on it's belly isn't part of the official design. It's just a crutch for rookie pilots, but we had to use it as we lost all the experienced ones during the testing process.

[Hotaru]

So I've been giving some thought to starting up a new career save in 1.0.5, seeing as it's likely to be a few weeks yet before we get 1.1 and probably a few weeks past that till all the mods I use are updated. I've been debating various approaches. In the meantime I decided to get back to my old 1.0.2 career save, and got to thinking about how hard it would really be to update it into 1.0.5. So I decided to give it a try by testing out some of my 1.0.2 career ships in my 1.0.5 sandbox save.

 

Spacebus 3-H: passed! Landed about 30 km long, but I can compensate for that. Encouragingly, it survived the water landing almost completely intact.

 

 

Starlet 4-passenger SSTO: passed! (Thanks to @NecroBones for the Discontinued Parts pack, which allowed the Starlet to keep its old-fashioned pre-1.0.5 Whiplash engines. The new ones, which are inexplicably slightly larger than standard Size-1, didn't fit.)

 

 

Mark 3 Shuttle (with heavy TweakScale abuse): passed! Had some stability issues during reentry, but it had those in 1.0.2 as well. I think adding a secondary RCS for attitude control (the main one is only good for translation) should give it the yaw authority it needs to correct the problem.

 

 

RLV-220 reusable rocket: passed! Lost its tail cones during reentry but I think I can fix that.

 

So it looks like everything should be transferable over to 1.0.5. I will have to make a few concessions (such as Module Managering away heating effects on ISRU units--for obvious reasons, none of my 1.0.2 mining rigs have radiators), but I think I'll have a go at updating the save to 1.0.5 once my Eve return mission is finished (it'll never work in 1.0.5 atmo). Which is good, because I'm pretty attached to this save and looking forward to playing it at least until 1.1 comes out. Not to mention the chance to finally start exploring the Outer Planets!

[cubinator]

I  finally upgraded my VAB to tier 2 in my hardmode career today! Now I can actually start building some proper ROCKETS!

[Deutherius]

39 minutes ago, Hotaru said:

The new ones, which are inexplicably slightly larger than standard Size-1, didn't fit.

Are you using RealPlume? Because if so, it's the culprit. At least mine is, the stock Whiplash is absolutely the right size.

[MagicFireCaster]

Made a racer type lander, tested it without landing gears on the mun canyons, it went pretty well considering i went down trough from one of the slopes, but managed to turn around and brake a bit.

now i need to put landing gear and science stuff on it to make a real mission.

[suicidejunkie]

Landed a second mun lander near the north pole to set up a Kerbin-Mun-Minmus link with better uptime.

Since this lander has the parts to build a bunch of relays, I set 'er down without dropping the descent stage or deploying the landing gear.

Instead I just laid it down, stripped off the excess tanks with my engineer and then rolled a barrel of fuel from the old descent stage down the hill to my new lander, since that was faster than carrying it.

 

Indiana Kerman or Donkey Kong?  You decide.

 

 

Edit:

Well, that didn't turn out so well.  Exploded all the engines trying to lift it to launch position.

Fortunately Jeb's Junkyard & Spaceship Parts has recently opened a franchise on the mun, so there are spares avaialble!

Edited January 30, 2016 by suicidejunkie
Added unforseen consequences

[Hotaru]

1 hour ago, Deutherius said:

Are you using RealPlume? Because if so, it's the culprit. At least mine is, the stock Whiplash is absolutely the right size.

Thanks for the hint! I probably wouldn't have guessed RealPlume was causing the issue, but I thought that seemed an odd problem for a stock part. I haven't tested it yet, but after poking around in the RealPlume folders, I think problem is this file: GameData\RealPlume\MP_Nazari_FX\emissives\emissives.cfg. For some bizarre reason it seems to scale up the turboFanEngine mesh by a factor of 1.25. No idea why it would do that, but I will try removing that file and see what happens.

[dangerhamster]

The Minmus refinery was finally declared mission capable with the laying of the outlet pipe, although the grins faded slightly when they realised they couldn't remember which container had the winches meant for ship connection in. Bill couldn't find his crayons to make a big "free fuel" sign to attract custom so the new plan is to construct crew habitation well stocked with Duna bars and David Kermanhoff DVD's.

Bill also got his fortress kabin of (relative) solitude in place with his own comms and big screen tv in case MechVal goes offline...

[loch.ness]

Not all today - but Imgur finally wanted to work for me:

 

First every bi-plane.  I'm not sure why this was so much harder to make fly than some of my other projects in the past but it flies pretty well now.

I also refined my R7 to look a little nicer. Still not perfect but much nicer than my first try.

Also got my new Saturn V working - well almost working - the way I want it.

http://i.imgur.com/I3dZv2n.png

CSM looks nice thanks to Ven's Stock Revamp mod - changes the skipper's visuals to fit perfectly.

Landing the LEM works well... Ascent I need to rework though.  Currently it detonates the descent stage and the fuel doesn't flow properly into the Ascent stage so the engine burns out while still full of fuel.

http://i.imgur.com/t04bEQC.png

[Deutherius]

8 hours ago, Hotaru said:

Thanks for the hint! I probably wouldn't have guessed RealPlume was causing the issue, but I thought that seemed an odd problem for a stock part. I haven't tested it yet, but after poking around in the RealPlume folders, I think problem is this file: GameData\RealPlume\MP_Nazari_FX\emissives\emissives.cfg. For some bizarre reason it seems to scale up the turboFanEngine mesh by a factor of 1.25. No idea why it would do that, but I will try removing that file and see what happens.

No need to dig around on your own, I just updated everything around RealPlume (with stockconfigs from the new thread), and Whiplash's size is fixed

[micr0wave]

A contract to rescue a kerbal and debris popped up and since the pay was good and new crew members for free is always nice:

 

 

[Threadsinger]

On 1/27/2016 at 8:04 PM, KerrMü said:

I´ve got a lot done over the weekend. Mostly with asteroids.

First I cought a class A (named "Pebbles") for a contract.

Second Kerbin was saved from an incoming class D ("Bam Bam"). To get that Potato into a low equatorial orbit took a lot of time.

Then a Class E ("Fred") had to be tugged to Duna:

That big black thing is Ike under 7000m away  but I needed that flyby to adjust orbit inclination.

And last I shot solar panels at "Betty" (another D class) in preparation for a station I have to build on her.

 

While all that happened my Eve Rover arrived at its destination. I may have found a new way to unload rovers

And I tried to get a nice screenshot of my SSTO family.

Left: Rising Star, middle: the good, old, trusty Shinden and the one on the right hasn´t got a name jet. 

Have fun, Mü  

Those SSTO's look fantastic!!

/what did I do in KSP today: dispatched spies to steal KerrMu's spaceplane designs

/what will I do tomorrow in KSP: strap some antimatter-catalyzed engines on those babies for heavy-haul capability goodness

/what I will do the day after tomorrow in KSP: attend remebrance ceremonies for the loss of the KSC after a catastrophic antimatter containment failure

[Paul_Sawyer]

Today I finally figured out a configuration of Space Shuttle that:
1) Can fly up;
2) can get back down:
   a) without flipping,
   b) without burning;

3) can carry some payload (although I'm not sure how heavy this payload can be - most of my missions include no more than 5 tons of it);

4) has a manipulator;

5) looks cool = looks like a real thing.
So, here it is: Mississippi and Massachusetts, my two work horses for now

 

[RizzoTheRat]

I'm using RemoteTech and launched a 4 satellite LKO Komsat network as soon as I had an antenna that could reach the Mun and Minimus.  In order to progress further afield I need some longer range antenna, so had intended to put some Keostationary satellites up to provide that capability.

However after seeing a post on here a few weeks back about someone setting up a Communicatron 16 ground network (sorry, can't remember who it was) I had an idea....

The result was one of the weirdest looking craft I've ever built.  I tried it with a faring but it seemed to buckle with time compression, and there was no way I was flying this half way round the world in real time, hence the use of MechJebs Smart ASS.  This is the Mk1 and made it around 1/4 of the way round the globe, the Mk3 has some extra tanks and is currently on it's way to the half way point.  Not the most efficient aircraft, a little draggy and no initial AoA on the wing, but it cruises at about 5km with the 6 degrees AoA and only has to do one flight.

My initial thought had been to build a cargo plane and some form of rover for the Komstation, but it suffered from design creep.  Three of them should give me full coverage, but at a total cost 10 about 150k I doubt it's any cheaper than 2 or 3 keostationary satellites.

Edited January 30, 2016 by RizzoTheRat

[Frank_G]

Maybe some of you remember my Mini-SSTO series from roughly a year ago. Now with 1.0.5 they are back in business. Here you see the latest iteration of the Stratocoaster series. It is still under development, but today it made it into a 90 by 80 km orbit with liquid fuel to spare for a powered landing. Besides performing very well, its flying like a charm...  No mods were used.

[Evanitis]

11 minutes ago, Frank_G said:

Stratocoaster

OMG, that's exceptionally beautiful... That canard! Much sleek. It shouts balance.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, Frank_G said:

Maybe some of you remember my Mini-SSTO series from roughly a year ago. Now with 1.0.5 they are back in business. Here you see the latest iteration of the Stratocoaster series.

...Named after the Fender guitar...

[Frank_G]

7 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

...Named after the Fender guitar...

That would be a Stratocaster... this is a STRATOsphere COASTER

28 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

OMG, that's exceptionally beautiful... That canard! Much sleek. It shouts balance.

Thank you very much

[dangerhamster]

Netrice was fast asleep in the cab of her rover when it suffered a sudden integrity failure.

With no evidence of giant mutant star goat activity it is strongly suspected some idiot was operating some kind of temporal accelerator nearby........  luckily her Lionel Ritchie collection survived (and some parts might be usable).

[SSgt Baloo]

Flying saucers are fun, but getting them into space intact, isn't. Aerodynamic forces tear the rocket apart once it gets going fast enough, when trying to push that platter into orbit, so I downloaded a program that allows me to teleport the @#$% thing into orbit from the launch pad. From there, I can use the attached retrorocket to deorbit. You can get quite a bit of cross-range performance out of one by inclining it to the direction of travel, once the aerodynamic forces of reentry become significant.

I even "skipped" one, arresting its downward travel and sending it up again, just through aerodynamics, though without any onboard propulsion, the effects are only temporary.

Seconds before it came apart due to aerodynamic forces.

Waiting to be 'ported into orbit (via the Hyperedit Express ).

Pointing retrograde. The lights are because if it gets turned, it can take a while to figure out which key to mash to effect the desired directional change. Plus it looks much more interesting when in the planet's shadow.

About 45 degrees from the direction of travel gives maximum lift. I've used this technique to get into the lower atmosphere, so as to begin more rapid deceleration, as well.

Whups! Shot past the target after all. I guess skipping was ill-advised this time! Retrograde for maximum braking.

Just like Ivory Soap, it floats!

Edited January 31, 2016 by SSgt Baloo
Added missing words to reduce the amount of gibberish.