What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Kryten 2X4B 523P]

I built a small rover and went exploring East Farside Crater. Ended up at the Canyons.

[MaxwellsDemon]

Finally, got to Kerbal a bit!

Kimmie Kerman placed the last in a series of control-point flags blazing a trail around the mountains west of KSC, and the probe Hathor 3A passed out of Kerbin's sphere of influence on its way for an orbital mission at Eve, with a mid-flight course correction scheduled in 73 days.  Meanwhile, the flyby probes Hathor 1 and 2 will encounter Eve in 28 and 32 days, respectively.

[dangerhamster]

A Monday off, the missus is at work a nice pinot nearby and my acid jazz playlist on..... There's only one thing for it. Contract cleanup day!

Started with the easy stuff, the long overlooked take a picture of <insert currently fashionable body>. Launched a modified version of my old Orbcam. Which looks better. Except for the docking port hidden behind the stack separator meaning no crew rotation until they return to LKO and ditch the go module, hope they like the view.

Next up some tinkering with the eccentricity and inclination of various satellites to fulfil the conditions of several contracts at once, one was only 0.1 degrees inclination off (wondered why the contract wasn't competed till I actually looked properly).

Next up was explore Eve and in a dramatic break with tradition I had actually dispatched a proper lander probe instead of sacrificing a survey probe. M700 best chute honest. In a clear case of mission creep the original of a small cheap probe to deliver a thermometer had bloated into "stuff everything on except the nutri-matic" to the extent of jamming in a deployable antenna. Well, didn't want the thing burning off on descent.

After a few minutes of mild panic when it looked like the oggin would claim her fate threw double sixes and Terra Purply came to the rescue. In your face irony.

With a not liquid landing assured the heatshield was dispensed with, at this point it was becoming apparent that the array of drogue chutes might have been a tad overpessimistic.  Still better safe than Bob.

After gently floating down for ages during which the idea of cutting some of the chutes failed to occur until afterwards she settled to the ground in much the same way that Hippos don't. It was then just a case of running out the antenna and firing off a temperature report to complete the contract. Yay.

The final one was a simple case of taking some temp readings with the Duna rover. Or in this case waiting for Kerbol rise to keep the limited battery capacity topped up.

Handily the report locations led into areas of higher ore concentration and a relatively flat bit which was marked using the debris-o-matic system neatly shoehorning the rovers primary mission with the contract. Which was nice. Hey there's an idea, how about a marker flag system for rovers?

 

 

Edited April 18, 2016 by dangerhamster

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

haven't been playing much recently, I've been trying to get my recording software to work with KSP. It's been difficult.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, dangerhamster said:

A Monday off, the missus is at work a nice pinot nearby and my acid jazz playlist on..... There's only one thing for it. Contract cleanup day!

 

After gently floating down for ages during which the idea of cutting some of the chutes failed to occur until afterwards she settled to the ground in much the same way that Hippos don't. It was then just a case of running out the antenna and firing off a temperature report to complete the contract. Yay.

 

 

 

Mods, plz. Landing gear, service bay, etc.

How'd you do the arm, IR?

[dangerhamster]

Off the top of my head the legs and service bay are Lithobrake, the top science bay is universal storage with a SpaceY adaptor on top. I think the truss is from near future construction and yes the piston is IR.

[teag2]

Yesterday, I started a new modded career in the 1.1 beta. I played for a while and decided to make a probe for the Mun. It was just a flyby probe and didn't actually reach orbit, but it did get a nice gravitational assist which flung it to solar orbit. From there, I still had over half of my fuel left, and I set up a burn for Duna. I set an alarm in KAC (and that's the first time I've really used it, to.) I am now working on proper orbiters and landers. Wish me luck!

Edited April 18, 2016 by teag2

[N_Danger]

 After a kraken attack plus much trail and error. I was able to attach a fuel tank to my station.

And sent the tanker/tug to the refining operation on Minmus.

[Musil]

I used this simple craft to show my girlfriend how orbital mechanics work, after she asked how NASA had sent Voyager to "all the planets". 

She still thinks the main objective of KSP is bringing tourist's to space, since I am always taking space planes filled with tourists to LKO. 

 

EDIT: I also think she would have been more impressed if 1.1 orbit's weren't ALMOST INVISIBLE!

Edited April 18, 2016 by Musil

[Mikki]

Landed my first 1.1x64 Mk3 Jumbo-class SSTO

[Cuky]

Today I was on my way to make it into Moho's orbit for the first time since I started playing KSP. I had enough fuel for capture maneuver but I had only had static solar panels and I forgot to orinet the craft so that they would generate electricity. Time for capture maneuver came and I couldn't do anything.

[hellblazer]

2 hours ago, Cuky said:

Today I was on my way to make it into Moho's orbit for the first time since I started playing KSP. I had enough fuel for capture maneuver but I had only had static solar panels and I forgot to orinet the craft so that they would generate electricity. Time for capture maneuver came and I couldn't do anything.

 Been there done that.

[Pthigrivi]

Struggled to keep a Burt Rutan style shuttle from nosediving off the runway for about a half an hour before I realized the probe core was upside down haha. Worked like a charm after that. 

 

[Zoidos]

I finally got around to install 1.1 with a decent amount of mod. Started with building a small spaceplane in sandbox with 2raapiers and a nerv. It flew really well and had ~900dV left in LKO. Italso had about 550 units of oxidizer left so the next step will be to replace the surplus of ox with lf and see how far I can get. On a related note, does anyone know how lf and ox relate in terms of mass?

[Wild Cobra]

Well, I decided to launch another monster. This is the same Mun Lander I used for the Mun Rocked Challenge, but I fixed my solar panel alignments. Same 1,395 parts after the non-permanent rockets are shed.

I plan to send it to an out planet mun. Haven't decided which though. Ideas anyone?

 

[hellblazer]

Slowly recreating the ISS. I have a long, long, long way to go to finish. Then I get to disassemble it and send it up in pieces. RSS fun.

 

http://imgur.com/a/nQ870

Edited April 19, 2016 by hellblazer

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, hellblazer said:

Then I get to disassemble it and send it up in pieces.

...then you get to decommission it and bring it down in pieces!

[SSgt Baloo]

It occurred to me that if I could build a rocket that was lifted by helicopter blades, I might also be able to construct a helicopter. It took several tries, but I seem to have managed to build something that flies controllably, if a bit ponderously.

I even managed to land it without crashing, but I haven't learned how to control it well enough to fly it with any precision, so I was in the general vicinity of the runway, but not actually on it.

More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/18APR2016

[RCgothic]

Landed on and returned from Duna for the first time! 

Edited April 19, 2016 by RCgothic

[Speeding Mullet]

31 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Landed on and returned from Duna for the first time! 

Great result congratulations!!

 

Today I finished the design of my 3rd Amphibious plane (none yet released).  It's based loosely on a Beriev Be-200ChS and features space for 16 passengers (plus 4 crew).  It's got a wet cargo space with an awesome little jet ski and ballast tanks to assist with water line leveling for release and recapture of the cargo.

As you will see the engines are mounted overhead and behind the wings to avoid the worst of the spray, but particularly damage from those water landings.  The hull of the plane has also been specially shaped to allow fast landings and takeoffs with minimal risk of nose diving.  If you want to do a slow landing on a small stretch of water or challenging landing strip then it's easily achievable with split rear tail brakes, flaps, air brakes and reverse thrust.  There's even a discrete rudder for rapid maneuvering on the water.

Given the plane is powered by twin Goliaths it has plenty of power and can easily fuel up for a very very long run.  It comes into it's own for water rescue missions, but due to the robust build quality it's equally at home landing on solid ground.  An all round performer, and pleasing design.

Gallery for those interested with more description 

 

SM 

[Curveball Anders]

Spent another 4-5 hours last night optimising the launch of a science lander to my Science Station (Mk.5) in Minmus orbit.

The final design dropped booster and first stage sub-orbital (autodestruct, no debris) and the orbital stage was dropped just before the payload entered orbit to rendezvous with the station (again minimal Kessler).

Yet the payload was docked to the station with 96% of it's fuel intact.

Then I went to the pub and tried to brag about my beautiful design and was met by a decidedly non-caring stare ...

Edited April 19, 2016 by Curveball Anders
Gramer

[soulsource]

I time warped until a transfer window to Jool opened, and sent off two probes and a crewed ship. The probes are for Tylo and Jool, the ship is going to Laythe. The probe for Jool is meant to dive into its atmosphere, send back some science data (not that I'd need it any more...), and then explode at some point. Maybe I'll even install some visuals mods especially for this occasion, although my PC has a hard time handling those... The probe for Tylo is my first attempt to land there. I was thinking about a crewed mission, but in the end I didn't want to risk my Kerbals' lifes in a mission with such uncertain outcome.

Anyhow, it was really fun to design the Laythe mission. First, I realized that my calculation of the dV requirements for going directly into a moon's SOI without circularizing around its parent body first was quite a bit off, so I fixed the formulas, and now going to the Joolian moons doesn't look as frightening as it did before. The single-launch ship including lander became quite a behemoth still, so I (again) switched difficulty options to allow reverting. I needed it, as the craft had a horrible tendency to spontaneously disassemble when the physics engine kicks in, until I added more launch clamps, and took care to make my ship not only have a four-fold rotation symmetry, but also to have two mirror planes... Now all three crafts are on their way to Jool.

Ah, and KSP nearly ruined my mission to Eeloo. After sending off my crafts to Jool I realized that there was a ship in Jool's SOI though the only craft I had sent there up to now was orbiting Pol. It turned out to be my crewed ship heading for Eeloo. KSP didn't show the Jool encounter on the map when I last had that vessel active, so obviously, now that it indeed did have an encounter, the unplanned "gravity assist" of Jool messed up my carefully planned trajectory... Good though, that a burn of just about 50 m/s will fix this again, but if I hadn't realized, the ship would have missed Eeloo by quite a bit...

[justidutch]

Managed to do some missions over the weekend.  I have about 300 days to wait for transfer windows to Duna, Eve and Jool which are all within 100 days of each other.

First was a mission to place a new base on Mün.  It required space for 8 'nauts, and needed 3 pilots on board.  I decided to make it a ship that could hop around a bit to gather science.  The contract was worth over $300,000, so I built it big (the grey ship), included two scientists, got it into orbit and refuelled it (with the orange ship).  Lost a few $ completing the mission but after landing it on the midlands new the far east crater and gathering science there, I hopped it to within 5 km of my science base in the crater, dropped off the science and the scientists and started researching the data.

Then there was a contract to rescue a Kerbal on Mün, and one in LKO.  So I built this cute little ship to accomplish the task...

… docked it with a nuclear tug that was loitering on Kerbin Stayshun...

 

… flew it to the moon (Sinatra anyone?), undocked and landed the tiny ship, rescued the poor soul, redocked to the tug, transferred the Kerbal to the tug, flew the lander to Mün Stayshun, flew the tug back to LKO, rescued the other idiot stranded Kerbal, flew to Kerbin Stayshun, and transferred the rescued dudes to sleeping quarters.

Lastly was to get the two dummies back on the ground to complete those missions and get the cash.  But I like being different, so this time I wanted to see if I could build an SSTO with the limitations of my current tech level.  After one failed attempt, I came up with this ultra-ugly contraption which managed the job rather beautifully.  A spaceplane, though not SSTO since I dropped the air breathing engines after they conked out, it made orbit easily and could even donate 360 units of fuel to Kerbin Stayshun after it docked, and had enough fuel to deorbit.  I way overshot the space complex by an entire landmass, but now I know for next time what the return profile should be! Sorry for all the pictures but I was rather proud of this one...

Plenty of power, it can take off about 3/4 of the way down the runway.  Proceeds to about 3km up on dry mode...

… then click it into wet mode when the speed starts to drop, angle up to 30 degrees AoA.

At about 12 km up it starts to slow down, so I pitched down to 5 degrees AoA, where it dove down to about 10 km, but began to pick up plenty of speed.  When it got to over 500 m/s I pitched up to 20 degrees.  It continued to accelerate up to about 17 km, at which point it began to lose speed, so I kicked in the Poodle.  At about 25 km the air breathers conked out, so I decided to drop them.  During a test run this procedure went without a hitch, but during the mission there was...

However, the plane survived, all its bits and pieced remained where they were supposed to be.

Circularized a 75km orbit with over 600 units of fuel left.

Plotted an intercept with Kerbin Stayshun, and approached it a$$ backwards...

Had to navigate around using RCS to find an open docking berth...

Approached slowly.  I have learned to place radial docking ports as close to the centre of gravity as possible, otherwise the targeting on the nav ball can get messy.

Transferred the crew, plotted a course back to the ground but way overshot the space complex.  I did get 80% return on the vehicle though, so the plane mission net cost was about $18,000.  A pretty good deal methinks!

I believe I should be able to do the same mission again without dropping the jet engines.  I'll have to ask the engineers if they can fix the air breathers right to the hull...

 

Edited April 19, 2016 by justidutch

[TimePeriod]

I said I would return and here I am again.

With dreams of being the king. (4336 tons and 475 parts)

[cubinator]

I worked on designing a versatile interplanetary mothership for the Eve-Kerbin-Duna region, then I saw the full version of 1.1 is out. Mod time!