What did you do in KSP1 today?

[fs10inator]

1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

This booster separation almost looks like a clock, the pic was perfectly....timed.

(Great looking rocket BTW )

Thanks. The separation of the 9 Castor-2 solids is a work of beauty.

Here's how it looks like IRL.

 

And another one...

[blorgon]

Tweaked an airless body lander design. 1640m/s fully fueled. Having a tough time getting any more out of it without more clipping. I tried to keep the clipping to a minimum, really only using it for the batteries and the cylindrical mono tanks, and of course the structural part, but that doesn't really count as it's supposed to be "built around" the main mono tank and engine mount.

Edited May 21, 2016 by blorgon

[G'th]

Got this thingy to fly:

Ended up crashing in the ocean and losing its wings and engines, but for a test flight it was pretty successful.

[soulsource]

My tourist trip to Duna and Ike finally arrived. I've gotten better at estimating fuel usage for landings on bodies with atmosphere:

The lander was just barely able to reach orbit and synchronize it with the mothership.Anyhow, if main engine fuel would have run out, they would still have had more than enough fuel for thrusters left, as an emergency measure.

[ValleyTwo]

I have been having problems with the new version.  You see, whenever I get a new version I test my basic designs with it.  So when 1.1.1 came out I tested a testing rocket with Jeb.  No mods, just basic go up and come down, chutes deploy, some explosions, he lives.

Well, he died four times in 1.1.1 - so I said, well, maybe something changed or maybe there is a bug, I'll wait, I have other games.

When 1.1.2 came out I tried again today.  He slammed into the ground, died.  I put extra large chutes on the command capsule - looked stupid.  Didn't work.  Still going too fast, half the time deployed the chutes too late, he dies, explosions, so forth.

Normally I would just go play some Minecraft or Banished or Distant Worlds.  But today I said %&*! that I am figuring out what is going on.  So I broke it down.  My chutes are not getting enough time to deploy and slow the craft.  Maybe an over the sea landing? You know, give them more time to cut into the air.  So I made a simple command capsule with three chutes, no crew, and started to test.  It slammed into the ocean, too fast.  It slammed into the lowlands, too fast.  It slammed into the mountains, too fast.

So I added a fuel tank and four engines to the capsule, between the heat shield and the command pod even though my brain told me heat and rocket fuel did not mix.  Starting the rocket engines right when I go past the re-entry 'everything is cooling off phase' slowed me down enough to deploy the chutes - right in time to watch the craft slam into the ground at a slightly slower speed.  I sat down and had a good think. Now, I assume a returning space craft is going to hit at a angle, not just go up and down, and therefore the forces involved would work slightly different.  But I like space stations and landing pods from stations returning crew for a little R&R back home normally just kind of come down.  Not straight down, but pretty much down-down.  Also, escape pods want to get down in a hurry.  So they well likely just head straight down, no fancy wings or playing about to loss energy.  Yeah, I am not a number cruncher.  I understood everything in The Martian book but I doubt I could explain it to others with all the proper math stuff.  

So I tried one last time, starting the rockets the second I entered the dark blue band of the atmosphere - you know, when the heat from re-entry and the heat of the engines should make it extra dangerous and fun.  Fun in a Dwarf Fortress method.  Well, it worked.  But even with the chute properly deployed I was going at 6 meters per second.  I was not sure if that was something the craft could survive so I dumped the heat shield (which I had tried once before but it had failed to help at all - going too fast).  It cut down the speed to something like 4 meters per second.

And my tiny craft survived.  To me, this was an important step because if I can do it anybody (including MechJeb which I like to use) can do it.  Because I suck at being a pilot.  But it also made me feel kind of happy to have figured out a problem.  Maybe everybody else had already figured it out - but I had figured it out on my own.  And that felt good.

It also means my little guys can come home when I want to cycle the old crews out and the new crews in.

 

[teag2]

Welp, long story short: I broke KSP.

What happened is this: Last night, I was messing around in Sandbox, and decided to make a Gilly probe. After the probe landed, I got bored and Hyperedited (I'm proposing for that to be added to the dictionary) the probe to low Jool orbit. I de-orbited it and watched it buuuurn. It survived the entry and proceded to fall through the atmosphere. It went through the "surface" and I watched, excited for it to explode.

Well, guess what?

It didn't explode.

I'll repeat that:

This probe went well under Jool's surface, and did not explode.

At first, I was confused: As the altimeter passed 500 meters, I though it was going up. Nope; vertical speed was at -70. So, I thought that I'd just wait. Unfortunately, it did not actually stop, because neither the gravitational force nor the atmospheric pressure seemed to be increasing. I waited a while, then decided to look for an atmospheric pressure display on KER. I couldn't find one, but I did notice the situation display: Landed. 

So, I was apparently landed on Jool while still moving at about 70 meters per second.

I realized that that meant I could probably get the hidden Jool SCIENCE!

I checked to see if there were any instruments on the probe, but there were none. I then realized that I had Vesselmover installed, and tried to see if I could spawn a ship. It let me, but unfortunately it got stuck at "Spawning vessel..." so it didn't work. Out of curiosity, I pressed "move vessel" , but that did nothing.

I decided to go back to the space center. I couldn't though, because I was "moving over the surface" and it couldn't save. I tried Hyperedit's velocity changer, but that reported that the position would be under the surface. Thanks, Hyperedit.

I then realized that if I hacked gravity, the atmosphere would quickly slow me down and stop me. I did that, but then the ship actually started to float up. That is one dense atmosphere. I tinkered with Hack Gravity until I came to nearly a stop, then went back to the space center.

I decided to send another vessel in to the atmosphere, so I whipped up a ship with all the science and flew it in to Jool. I was ready to do the science when it exploded at -250m like usual. I was extremely confused at this point, so I went back to the space center and in to the tracking station.

But then, not only were the probe still there, but the two ships I had tried to spawn earlier with Vesselmover were there, too. I took control of one and tried to do a crew report. The game said that it needed crew to do that. There was no crew display in the bottom, but clicking on the hatch showed a Kerbal in there. I clicked EVA, and then the Hell Kraken struck (the game blackscreened and the GUI instruments broke) I then clicked "Space Center" and the game crashed.

I figured that was enough and went to sleep. Will research this more today!

Edited May 21, 2016 by teag2
Typo + OCD

[StrandedonEarth]

After a 4km/s insertion burn, my Moho Orbiter+Lander probe achieved orbit around, of all places, Moho. Then I discovered I forgot the antenna. So I turned the whole mess into an impactor instead...

Luckily my older-model Eve Orbiter Lander Tandem has antennas. It seems I lost them when I upgraded the probe cores for the MOL

Edited May 21, 2016 by StrandedonEarth

[Andem]

On 5/20/2016 at 10:59 AM, adsii1970 said:

I gave up. I have a Cessna knock-off that flew like a beast in 1.0.5. NEVER had a problem with it. It was able to roll down the runway and reach 45 m/s and was light enough that it could actually go airborne at that speed, and it only took a little over 25% of the length of the runway. It was virtually indestructible and took a lot of abuse landing on all kinds of terrain. Oh, and it was s l o w... but it did get to wherever you needed to go, providing you had the fuel.

AND NOW COMES 1.1.2: Around 10 m/s it will either begin to pull to the left or the right. If I adjust the heading, it then immediately pulls hard in the opposite direction, shoots off the runway, and begins doing donuts until I either revert and try again, or get mad and <ALT F4>. It doesn't matter what aircraft I try, it all ends up more or less the same. Landing is no longer fun. I crashed a space plane into the hangar because the darned thing did donuts almost as soon as the front gear made contact with the runway. 

Out of respect to the programmers, I will not say anything beyond this. Nope. Won't...

I've gone back to 1.0.5...

I wish I could... My 1.0.5 copy somehow got corrupted. 

Those survey contracts (which used to keep my space program running) are now useless filler contracts that will never be completed. The only thing I managed to get off of the tier three runway needed to have the traction manually set to zero so it could take off. I love ya, SQAUD, but you're really screwin' me over here. 

Edited May 21, 2016 by Andem

[justidutch]

An uneventful day at mission control, two new contracts were undertaken.  First up was a contract to expand Mün station by adding a cupola, berths for six and an auxiliary research module.  The administrators decided to also add ore tanks and an ore processor.  This greatly reduced the profits from the contract but basically added ISRU processing to the station for free.

 

Then, similarly, a contract to add an ore processor and 6 berths to a station in solar orbit.  This ship was created which fulfills to requirements and will be able to journey a fair distance afterwards.  

After getting to orbit and escaping Kerbin's SOI, the rendezvous burn was plotted and executed; meeting up with the station will happen in just over a year.

 

[N_Danger]

Practiced aero braking at Jool

With mixed results. (F5 and F9 turned out to be my friends)

[Whirligig Girl]

Yesterday I did this. It got to orbit on a 3x Kerbin rescale. It was destined for Revamped Stock System Laythe, but glitches and bugs made me just give up.

The whole time I was thinking "What the heck am I doing?" I even said that if money were on the table, I would bet against the rocket getting to orbit. And then the rocket got to orbit. In a 3x rescaled system.

A couple days earlier I did this:

It's a Duna mission in Revamped Stock System + 3x Rescale Sigma Dimensions.

After that, I ascended to orbit to test some orbitaly stuff using the principia in the Duna/Ike system. It's a really interesting system. So interesting I ran out of fuel testing it. So I used my last few drops of fuel to get into a stable solar orbit, outside the precarious instability of the Duna/Ike system. Duna and Ike merely laugh at the concept of "Stable Medium-Altitude Orbits."

Today, I've been testing a super buggy version of KittopiaTech, trying to not crash the game, and tried to develop my Planet Pack X mod.

Also, OPM compatibility for Revamped Stock Kerbol System. I feel like livestreaming some Uncharted Lands later today.

Edited May 21, 2016 by GregroxMun

[awfulhumanbeing]

I spent an hour on a wobbly Apollo style rocket with no mods on 0.20 with its stupid SAS, then when I made it back home I realised that I forgot a parachute and everybody died. Now I am working at a B (Bulky) class SSTO in 1.1. The day of emotions.

Waiting for your Jool surface samples, @teag2

Edited May 21, 2016 by awfulhumanbeing

[Freshmeat]

I discovered that USI Sounding Rockets make for nice ATG rockets when mounted under the wing of an aircraft. The trick was to ignite the motor before releasing the rocket.

[Triop]

Roadtrip !

They loved it !

[teag2]

I did the aforementioned research.

Here's to you, @awfulhumanbeing.

Edit: If the EVA pictures don't show up, check the album.

Edited May 22, 2016 by teag2

[HoloYolo]

Trying to build manned orbiters in RO. Still trying to get off the launch pad.

[pasukaru76]

Successfully installed my third automated refuelling outpost at Gilly. The other two are at Minmus and Ike. Next up will be Pol.

[el_coyoto]

It had been a while since we decided to go to Duna, not because it's easy, but because the rest is harder.

After a long series of launches, docking, refills and crew transfers, the Duna flotilla has been completed and 6 intrepid Kerbals have been sent to Duna!
The flotilla includes an orbital science station/fuel depot, an Ike miner, two scanners probes, two unmanned rovers, 2 crewed landers/return vehicles and a mobile ground science station.

 

The ejection burns have all been made, SOIs crossed, mid course corrections set up and now, everyone is on his merry way to Duna.

[The Optimist]

Today, I shot a FAT-455 control surface from my prototype propeller engine into a saturn V-esque thing I built which was on the launchpad. It destroyed the lunar lander module.

[TimePeriod]

I spent a little time building a space station.

Its too small.

 

Also, Microsoft forced me to update to Windows 10 which meant a whole bunch of shortcuts, keybinds, my keyboard, my sound, my monitor and my friggen headset. Everything refused to work and I could not find many of my files. I had to spend a whole day of my weekend JUST to fix everything and get my setup working again.

I friggen hate Windows 10. Its the worst piece of garbage I've ever been FORCED to use.

(I DID NOT ACCEPT THE UPDATE! I DID NOT PRESS ANY "OKAY" - "AGREE" buttons) I clicked the little red cross in the upper right corner and STILL it updated my OS, I friggen hate Microsoft. 

[Superfluous J]

1 minute ago, TimePeriod said:

(I DID NOT ACCEPT THE UPDATE! I DID NOT PRESS ANY "OKAY" - "AGREE" buttons) I clicked the little red cross in the upper right corner and STILL it updated my OS, I friggen hate Microsoft. 

I have a friend who was also bitten by this. I wonder if anybody's considering a class action lawsuit.

FWIW I think Windows 10 is better than 8 was, but both are worse than 7. And whatever your prior version, auto upgrading because "Yay we're Microsoft" is a BS move.

[TimePeriod]

6 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I have a friend who was also bitten by this. I wonder if anybody's considering a class action lawsuit.

FWIW I think Windows 10 is better than 8 was, but both are worse than 7. And whatever your prior version, auto upgrading because "Yay we're Microsoft" is a BS move.

We will soon find out, I am calling my lawyer tomorrow to see if something can be done about it. This is something which I will not stand for.

[TrooperCooper]

 

With their newest spaceship, the United Nations went on a mission to achieve a stable orbit around the Moon. They are also in the process of developing a 4,400 tons monstrosity to land humans on the Luna surface. Click here to see more.

 

[pandaman]

Been a while since checked this thread out...

Wow!  Lots of good stuff.

Whilst waiting  for the wheels and legs to get fixed, before I do much stuff that needs them, I'm  in the process of building a station in stationary orbit over KSC.  I made a variety of modules in the VAB and then launch whichever I fancy and dock it in place.  I have a couple of tugs on the station that I use to position stuff and rearrange the  existing modules if I think it looks wrong.

It was positioned almost perfectly, but it keeps getting nudged a bit every time I add a new module.  So I'll keep it from getting too far off and tweak it's final position when it finished (whatever that means).  

One day I'll  get around to posting screenshots

[TimePeriod]

 

Here's the skeleton for the second spacestation I am working on. It still feels too small.