What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Bigbootie]

Deleted

Edited June 12, 2016 by Bigbootie
Not relevant.

[fourfa]

Watched Apollo 13 on a lark last night, and today had to build an Apollo-style mission for the first time - it's pretty fun.  LES jettison is hilarious.  Pulling the LM (MM?) out of the S3 fairing.  Crashing S3 into the Mun.  Flying a wee lander can ascent module to Munar orbit rendezvous. Nearly having the SM crash into you on re-entry.

Just curious, did they retro the LM ascent modules into the surface, or are they still in orbit up there?

[CatastrophicFailure]

26 minutes ago, fourfa said:

.

Just curious, did they retro the LM ascent modules into the surface, or are they still in orbit up there?

Just did the same mission profile myself, actually.

AFAIK, the LM ascent stagers were deliberately crashed after. Even if not, perturbations from mass concentrations on the moon tend to pull anything out of orbit fairly quickly unless it's placed very particularly.  There are only a few stable low orbits around the moon. 

[cantab]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module#Lunar_Modules_produced

Apollo 10's ascent module was sent into solar orbit and is the only one that flew and survived. On the other hand it's descent module was left in lunar orbit and crashed.

Apollo 11's was left in lunar orbit and crashed. The same for 16. I'm not sure why the 16 LM was not deliberately deorbited.

12, 14, 15, 17 all deliberately deorbited.

13's re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and was destroyed. The same for Apollo 9 which never went to the Moon but tested the LM in LEO.

---

As for me in KSP, well ran out of Ec so my new shuttle on its maiden flight did an uncontrolled flyby of Serran. I recovered solar power when the angle to the Sun changed, and tomorrow will work on bringing her back home. And be less stingy on the solars next time!

Edited June 12, 2016 by cantab

[CatastrophicFailure]

17 minutes ago, cantab said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module#Lunar_Modules_produced

Apollo 10's ascent module was sent into solar orbit and is the only one that flew and survived. On the other hand it's descent module was left in lunar orbit and crashed.

Apollo 11's was left in lunar orbit and crashed. The same for 16. I'm not sure why the 16 LM was not deliberately deorbited.

12, 14, 15, 17 all deliberately deorbited.

13's re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and was destroyed. The same for Apollo 9 which never went to the Moon but tested the LM in LEO.

---

As for me in KSP, well ran out of Ec so my new shuttle on its maiden flight did an uncontrolled flyby of Serran. I recovered solar power when the angle to the Sun changed, and tomorrow will work on bringing her back home. And be less stingy on the solars next time!

Ok so I was 5/7 right. 

[Overland]

I built a "Kotto Train" (Electric isotope battery/regenerative powered) for crew transport and pickup around KSC, small enough and articulated enough to putter around KSC turning into all taxiways and pathways at between 3 and 7m/s depending on where shes going..

KSC is actually an amazing place, quite large from the ground.. where every taxiway leads somewhere nice to pickup or drop off crew.. made all the more special by a nice bell I was able to get from the Yarra Trams website and use everytime I hit the gear button.. sound the bell when approaching a junction, sound when departing.. and sometimes just for fun.. ding ding ding ding!!!

the run to the launchpad was especially nice, being able to open the throttle to 7m/s.. stop at the pad, drop off a kerbal.. then turn into that circular pathway that actually brings the train fully back around heading back

Passenger Pickup Point

Heading to Launch Pad

A days work, heading to Runway from Launchpad via detour that eventually snaked its way around the dish array, under the research tunnel and back out near the fuel tanks to the runway

Articulation Extreme! (Test)

Around the dish!

 EDIT: Night time later run video

 

(Real thing - inspiration and what I hope to own if I ever win the lotto)

Edited June 12, 2016 by Overland

[Bigbootie]

Base module delivery to new location. 

Part of the reason I chose the location was to be able to fly this canyon every time I land.

[Grenartia]

Lately, I've been trying to design the Ultimate Rover^TM.

I wanted it to have the following characteristics:
-carry 4 kerbals at a single time in a cab

-be entirely stock

-carry enough LFO and the proper engines to attain a decent suborbital jump from most moons

-carry enough xenon and ion engines to attain orbit after the LFO runs out (goes without saying that it would need a lot of electric charge, RTGs, and large solar panels)

-carry enough monoprop to dock with, as well as possibly enough to right itself after a rollover

-not use any crew parts (i.e., cockpits, cabins, etc.)

-be able to survive a rollover without significant loss of functionality

-fit inside a mk 3 cargo bay

-keep part clipping, if any, to an absolute minimum

-be able to haul a trailer like a semi would (i.e., can't use docking ports, that would make it basically just a single, long, rigid vehicle with a tiny turning radius)

-aesthetics were not a key design point, but I didn't want a rover that looked like garbage

Seemed simple enough to me, as I figured I could reasonably do those things (after all, its not like I was asking it to also be an SSTO that could also return from the surface of Eve while hauling the trailer(s)), but after a month of tinkering, discovering that I could not design such a rover that did not look super ugly  or meet the propulsion requirements (or, in some cases, I could, only to discover that my design had parts too close to the wheels). And even the trailer capability was rather wonky in practice. So, I have finally decided to break down and start using crew parts and mods.

[kBob]

I finally mastered the EVA controls.  The key for me turned out to be remapping the controls: Left, Right, Up, Down to the arrow keys; Forward to Insert, Backward to Delete and grab to keypad 0.  What a difference that made, now I can send my Kerbal spinning off and get back to my ship no more fumble fingers.  I'll probably map the r key to keypad enter too.  I always remap the basic movements to arrows (I hate WASD) but getting good locations for the others was the trick (well and a light touch).  Sad how long it took before I forced myself to learn this :(.

 

[magnemoe]

Operation lord of lag is complete.
After I found that an medusa heavy cargo ship did not work well it was back to the drawing board. 
Fond that an regular orion pulse engine was far better for this task so I launched one with the rest of the needed modules. 
Send this to Minmus and meet up with the medusa and the main base.
Called lord of lag because the total part count is close to 1000. 

Frist step was to move most of the nuclear charges to the orion.


Then I undocked the base and the orion main payload and put the base in the center. 

Base in center, then an Eve system tug, a workshop to make small parts and an lander to put ore on eve, that contract pays for most of the mission.


Bill is here strutting down the front modules to the base.

[Grenartia]

9 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Operation lord of lag is complete.
After I found that an medusa heavy cargo ship did not work well it was back to the drawing board. 
Fond that an regular orion pulse engine was far better for this task so I launched one with the rest of the needed modules. 
Send this to Minmus and meet up with the medusa and the main base.
Called lord of lag because the total part count is close to 1000. 

Frist step was to move most of the nuclear charges to the orion.


Then I undocked the base and the orion main payload and put the base in the center. 

Base in center, then an Eve system tug, a workshop to make small parts and an lander to put ore on eve, that contract pays for most of the mission.


Bill is here strutting down the front modules to the base.

I've never used an Orion mod (mostly because I haven't found one compatible with the version I was using whenever I looked), but any time I talk about the RL project to my friends, they find it hard to believe that 1: this was an actual thing that was researched and 2: that it was actually feasible in the first place.

And then that's when I start redirecting the conversation to Thunderwells. Man, the things I wish they'd put in stock.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Heliwopter!

[magnemoe]

21 minutes ago, Grenartia said:

I've never used an Orion mod (mostly because I haven't found one compatible with the version I was using whenever I looked), but any time I talk about the RL project to my friends, they find it hard to believe that 1: this was an actual thing that was researched and 2: that it was actually feasible in the first place.

And then that's when I start redirecting the conversation to Thunderwells. Man, the things I wish they'd put in stock.

Roverdudes orion mod works well, that is the orion engine and charge system,

the medusa engine is bugged for me and many others, main issue is deploying the parachute sail. 
Contrary to my belief pushing heavy loads work better than pulling making the medusa pretty redundant. 
 

[Gojira1000]

I finished the design for my RSS Career/TAC-LS/SMURFF attempt on Mars

12,000t, 4.3 million funds, 25k dV

Jeb, Bill and Bob, Godspeed lads. Godspeed.

[TrooperCooper]

4 hours ago, Gojira1000 said:

I finished the design for my RSS Career/TAC-LS/SMURFF attempt on Mars

Nice one. Is that with lander? Or just fly-by / orbit?

 

Edited June 12, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[tigershark]

I made the second module for my interkerbin space station and my game crashed for the very fist time mid-flight. 

[Mjarf]

Made a trip to Dres and back, it was more difficult to get back than expected, in my first attempt I came into Kerbins SOI at 6km/s with about 3km/s or delta-v left. In my second attempt I waited for the transfer window and maneuvered more carefully and got it down to about 2km/s. I also had too few solar panels to compensate for the distance to the sun so couldn't transfer any science from my mobile lab until I got about halfway. For a future Jool mission I'll have to re-think my electrical setup, 3-4 times as much battery capacity and nuclear reactors. My trip to Dres wasn't very exciting, but it was quite educational, I've learnt a few more things about interplanetary travel and how to build an optimal craft for it.

I probably won't go back to Dres, it was a pretty boring planet, it's quite similar to the Mun, only A LOT more difficult to get to. It was the next logical step in my interplanetary progress, not sure if I'm going to Jool or Eve next. I've sent unmanned probes to Eve and Moho, probably won't go to Moho anytime soon, Eve seems like the next logical step. Jool will most likely require at least one re-fuel on the way.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Mjarf

[Stratzenblitz75]

Today I finished one of the most ambitious missions I've ever attempted:

Duna³ - Direct descent mission to Duna and back THREE times - no refueling

 

[Gojira1000]

6 hours ago, TrooperCooper said:

Nice one. Is that with lander? Or just fly-by / orbit?

 

3-crew landing. Or marooning.

[cantab]

Crashed and destroyed the Britannia cargo shuttle on her fifth mission. Gutted.

[Bigbootie]

More parts delivered. One day I'll organize all this stuff.

[TrooperCooper]

3 hours ago, Gojira1000 said:

3-crew landing. Or marooning.

Tight! I wish you good luck!

[kraden]

I showed KSP to a friend today. I made a new sandbox game and slapped together a minmus lander with some supplies for the crew (USI-LS). We decided to have the supplies in a separate module that we would disconnect upon landing. All went really we'll up until the point where I disconnected the supply module. You see, I forgot about my recently added Remote Tech mod and never put an antenna on either the lander or the module. Opon disconnecting, the supplies managed to fall into a tumble and take out a third of the lander's solar arrays. The only saving grace was that despite having no control over the thing it managed to land upright on it's still retracted landing gear. Bob planted a flag, we called it a day, back to kerbin! Only in my haste to build this ship,  I also forgot parachutes . Despite my errors, my friend now really wants the game.  Mission accomplished! 

[CobraA1]

Created brand new Duna craft on a relatively new save.

Didn't think I had a lot of fuel, so tried to land on a mountain.

Landed on the side of the mountain, and vehicle started slipping at about 1.1 m/s. Looked down, and it'll be slipping for a good hour or so?

Didn't want to wait for it, so no soil samples or flags planted today .

While MechJeb was keeping the craft stable, did all of the science I could.

The ascent autopilot for MechJeb apparently won't work on a hill while slipping. Won't work as you take off, either. So I did it manually. Not a good ascent - nearly vertical.

Was able to make it to orbit. Calculated what it would take to get back home. Nope. Even 20 years out, not enough fuel. Worse yet, I had forgotten the antenna, so I couldn't even complete the mission.

So I had to create a new craft to perform a rescue. Since the old craft could land and take off from Duna successfully, I figured that if I kept the landing craft and made a few modifications, the rescue craft could make it all the way there and back. Cut out all of the science stuff, since this was a rescue ship. Made the landing craft 2-way symmetrical instead of 3-way, and switched it to engines that were efficient in space. Put in the antenna (although I didn't use it). A few other minor modifications as well. It was now a pure space rescue vessel.

Went out with MechJeb piloting the rescue ship. Pretty uneventful, but the original craft was on a pretty steep orbit. Had the pilot gather all of the data from the original craft and board the rescue craft. Had to boost the orbit up to 600+ km so I could time accelerate until I had an optimal window. MechJeb was bugged out for the interplanetary transfer, so I did it manually. The return trip was at an odd angle, so I was approaching Kerbin essentially from the south, but it worked!

Heat shield held up, mission was a success, and I finally got a lot more science after a long science drought .

I think the original craft could actually make the entire round trip, I had just wasted a lot of fuel with the takeoff from Duna. That said, the next craft to go there will have a bit more fuel. I don't like slim margins.

[Mjarf]

I think Duna is jinxed or something, seems like at least one thing goes wrong every time I go there. It seems like such a nice and harmless little planet, but no, it will occasionally bite you in the butt.