What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Richy teh space man]

Finished designing my mothership. I plan on space building it around Minmus before taking it on a tour of the outer planet mods planets and moons.

The plan is the two landers at the back will supply fuel and resources to build things once I arrive.

[Stratzenblitz75]

Today, I built an SSTO. A mini SSTO:

 

[Corona688]

8 hours ago, MedwedianPresident said:

Is is a horizontal moon lander?

Yes, most of my landers are horizontal these days.  I don't much like the hitchhiker container -- absurdly heavy, very poor visibility -- so for carrying tourists around, I need grids of the airplane tubes.

It needs more fuel though, it can't quite make it on its own.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Corona688

[MiniMatt]

55 minutes ago, Stratzenblitz75 said:

Today, I built an SSTO. A mini SSTO:

That was awesome  I'm routinely astounded by the grav-assist shenanigans displayed on this board.

But looking over the Rio schedule, I'm disappointed to see that the 3000m face tumble has yet to be made an Olympic sport - the IOC really needs to up their game

[Flamingo]

Do you ever have that feeling that you are wasting your money on useless parts, only to make life easier for yourself and your kerbals? Well i did, so i sat down and discussed with Wernher what parts was necessary, and what were just pure luxury. We came to an agreement that three wheels was nothing but a waste of money. Wernher came up with this sleek looking plane:

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by Flamingo
lol, gave you the wrong link

[Guest Space Cowboy]

Space Station  support craft

2 man SSTO / 6 man crew return & lifeboat / 2 man command (of a larger vessel)

[Bogen]

I had a rescue mission on the Mun. Apart from a terrible inefficient landing, it went of smoothly, but I found some interesting geology features nearby.

It's a sheer (76 degree) 2000 meter high cliff.

Coordinates in spoiler if you want to visit it yourself. Be careful on the bottom, you might get stuck.

Spoiler

61 10 N
78 04 E

 

On 08/08/2016 at 2:27 AM, Ty Tan Tu said:

I keeping looking at the EAS-1 External Command Seat and figure out how to use it. This gives me a lot of ideas.

 

I'm happy to inspire.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Bogen

[Randox]

I've wanted to build a plane with a more conventional engine layout (not on the center line vertically) for a while now. After some experiments, I decided on this:

 

It flies quite nicely. The top engines are throttled to around 70% to bring the center of thrust right in line with the center of mass, though the plane has a natural nose up tendency that requires 20-25% trim to counter, so I think I could increase the power a little more to fight that tendency, which will also give me some gains in efficiency and speed from the extra thrust and reduced drag.

I'm still playing around with the action groups as well. The inboard and center ailerons are roll, and are also paired to extend in opposite directions to act as minor air brakes. The outboard ailerons are strictly for pairing with the center set, and both extend downwards to act as landing and takeoff flaps. The plane also has 4 full size air brakes to assist with landing, and emergency speed control while airborne.

 

Lastly, between the air brakes and thrust reversers, as well as flying the plane with a 30% fuel load, it has a surprisingly short stopping distance. That said, this is not where I actually stopped on the island. This is just where I parked after rolling back with the reversers and changing my pants:

No, when I stopped, the rear wheels were just past the dirt, and the front wheel had started down the hill. It was...a tense moment. But all worked out, and it even fits in the hanger:

 

It still isn't perfect. There are some mass balancing issues I want to resolve, and I want the tail fin to be higher. I originally had it attached to the rudder, but it puts the center of lift way too high, and the plane will backflip on takeoff. Still, I think I can get them just bellow the engines. Oddly enough, when all is said and done, the rear engines might actually be angled up a bit (thrusting downward to lift the tail).

Edited August 9, 2016 by Randox

[N_Danger]

 Went to the Mun in a new SM and docked with the lander sent earlier. The mission was for 2 Biome landings with Bob at the controls. The transfer stage had some fuel left so I used it to de-orbit the lander and for about 60% of the suicide burn.

The mission was a great success with much science gathered

But it was good to be home afterwards

 

[MaxwellsDemon]

Successfully docked the analogues of the Columbus ("Gurumba") and Kibo ("Khert-Ib") lab modules to the ISS-inspired KSS space station!  This brings it up to operational status and the Expedition 1 crew launched in Horus T-4 to put the station into full operation.  They are currently in a phasing orbit in LKO preparatory to rendezvous.

The Expedition 1 crew will conduct some initial experiments and tests, start the life-support systems, and make several EVAs to install reinforcing struts and additional exterior hardware.

Additions yet to be launched include the "Hapy" hydroponics module, an additional accommodations module for transient and visiting personnel, and the Orbital Runabout utility vehicle (which will also function as an additional emergency return capsule).

The orbital tug was deorbited after fulfilling its mission of installing several modules.

Hathor 2 refined its orbit and made the first of several low passes over Eve, taking readings on areas of the planet unobserved by Hathor 1.  Hathor 2 is still in a highly eccentric orbit in readiness for an anticipated Gilly rendezvous, timing yet to be determined.

Horus 23 is being readied for the last of the Minmus survey missions.

Improvements to launch pad Beta were completed, bringing it up to full status.  A third launch pad, Gamma, is planned.

[Salvator]

Well, today i almost head a heart attack...

I succesfully tested my first working VTOL:

And took a cheesy screenshot using Temperatures Overlay and then turned it into a wallpaper:

 

[capi3101]

Been away for a while - eight months to be exact; last time I visited the forums the latest version was 1.0.4 and my box was getting increasingly unsuitable for playing KSP. Last weekend I finally ditched the onboard chip (10-year old tech as it turned out) for a dedicated video card (3-year old tech which was relatively new when I bought it; it took me that long to finally figure out why my system didn't want to work with it). KSP was one of the games I fired up to checkout my box's newfound glory...
 

Anyways, HOWDY, Y'ALL. It's been a while (good Lord, that sounds a bit like a countrified Adele song). Anybody want to summarize what all I've missed these last eight months? I guess we're up to 1.1.2 or something?  

[Samtc]

I've just had a nice little idea for a bit of a challenge; I've decided to try out kerbalism, But for a twist i'm going to try adding it into my half finished career. So today is going to be about implementing a series of preemptive rescue missions before my kerbals start needing silly little things like food, oxygen and room to move. Luckily i don't have any interplanetary bases yet.   

[TimePeriod]

Spent an hour working on a budget-minded interplanetary spacecraft. Still much a work in progress. Looks fancy thou!

 

[eddiew]

Visited @KerikBalm's new moon Rald for the first time with a small doohickey. Lurking in keostationary orbit, it looked pretty easy to get to and I took a gamble on delta-v requirements and got away with it. Orbital velocity was about 950m/s, atmosphere thin but sufficient to parachute something of this size. Not yet tested whether it has oxygen, but it looks suspiciously like there has been some form of biological transfer over the eons...

Texture is a little grainy here and there, but it's a beautiful addition to Kerbin's sky, and adds an interesting hazard/gravity-assist option. You can pick up the dev version from his dropbox here (hopefully he doesn't mind me sharing from the other thread):

 

[smysha]

I'm terrible at buiding planes. Especially since I use only FAR atmospheric model. But for the first time I build something that didn't crashed on the runway. Yay me!

Big, slow and foolproof - just what I need. Turn rate of this WW1-inspired aircraft is terrible, but still I had amazing time with it.

But hey, I still can't do proper landing.

[Bill Phil]

Played for about 15 or 20 minutes, and then KSP crashed. It might've been multiple different things that caused it, though. Maybe my laptop was overheating, maybe 64 bit is unstable, or maybe something else entirely.

Even so, my short time in the game today was still very fun, but I should look into a cooling pad or something.

[MaxwellsDemon]

Let's see about posting some pix...

 

Hathor 2 at Eve:

 

Horus docking at the Skylab-inspired Station Alpha:

 

Horus-Isis approaching Minmus:

 

KSS while under construction:

 

Current state of KSS (nearing completion):

[Corona688]

KSC scientists got a little overexcited at the idea of combining 'rocket', 'miner', and 'jet'.  Opinions were mixed on whether a jet at sea level would hasten Kerbin along to its long-awaited Duna incidence window.  Some called the self-fuelled engine a 'portent of doom', others decried it a 'machine revolt waiting to happen'.  When it was demonstrated how one kerbal and a sturdy shovel could dismantle it if necessary, the project went ahead.

The unit failed to achieve break-even for electrical generation or fuel generation, resulting in a "very pretty" stream of continuous sparks from the badly choked jet.  Perhaps with a better generator and a richer mineral source.

[Crocket]

Well, with the Olympics happening right now, I decided to host my own little Kerbolympics! The first event? Rocket jumping!

http://imgur.com/a/cN6LA I can't figure out how to embed albums now...

(Yes, I actually did hit 360 meters. And yes, Bobak Kerman is real.)

[Fearless Son]

So I had a contract to retrieve some science data from Minmus.  I left a lander in Minmus orbit that I have been reusing on previous missions, I just send a crew module out to dock with and refuel it, then leave it there and return with the data in the crew module.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put solar panels on my transfer module.  Too bad, but I can manage it!  Then I realized that I put too little monopropellant into it.  Too bad, but I managed to just get right next to the science lander!  So I EVAed a pilot to the lander, then docked the lander with the transfer module.  Phew!  

Then came my first routine landing, right onto one of Minmus' slopes:

Some good science there!  So since it was just half a kilometer away and the gravity was low, I could afford the fuel to jump to that nerby flat (one of the smaller ones that counts as a generic "flats" biome):

Yay, more science!  Then it was time to return to orbit and dock with the transfer module to take the crew back to Kerbin.  

... that was where things went a little haywire.  The intercept happened on Minmus' night side, and unfortunately I realized too late that the lander was facing toward the transfer module and was going too fast.  They collided, sending the transfer module into an uncontrolled spin and breaking the pair of deployable solar panels that the science lander relied on.  Because the transfer module had no probe system, no monopropellant, and no way of autonomously generating electricity, the odds of stabilizing it from its wild spin were not good, and the loss of the solar panels on the lander meant that there was now a hard cap on how much electricity the mission had remaining.  The mission commander got on the radio:

"Kerbin, we have a problem..."

The lander was light and had enough fuel to preform a transfer to elsewhere in Kerbin's sphere of influence, but it lacked the heat resistance, parachutes, and/or thrust-to-weight ratio to safely make a Kerbin landing.  So I put it into a conservative aerobreaking course, and worked on getting a rescue mission together.  I could just dock with the lander and transfer the crew and science, but it was so close to Kerbin and so small that I could probably just land the whole thing if I could shield it from the atmospheric compression and add appropriate atmospheric landing equipment.  I was planning on retiring the craft soon anyway, so this seemed like a good excuse to bring her home.  So that is exactly what I did, and here is the recovery module docked with the science lander:

Some weird graphical artifacts on Kerbin's textures there for some reason.  Anyway, I let this thing do a bit more aerobreaking passes and settle itself in.  Even after the ablator from the heat shield was completely expended, it still served its purpose of absorbing the brunt of the atmospheric compression and making a detached shockwave that would protect the rather more delicate module docked to it.  Incidentally, through the many passes I made I kept flying by a piece of space debris, sometimes less than twenty kilometers separation.  The relative velocity was enough it might have done a lot of damage if it hit.  Let this be a lesson about leaving junk in LKO, especially along the commonly traversed equatorial plane!  

Anyway, something blew up on descent, but nothing critical as far I could tell.  Probably just a solar panel or an RCS thruster.  I managed to splash the whole thing down on Kerbin's night side and got a not-bad amount of science from just a run to Minmus:

Think I might be ready for a crewed Duna mission soon...

5 hours ago, Corona688 said:

The unit failed to achieve break-even for electrical generation or fuel generation, resulting in a "very pretty" stream of continuous sparks from the badly choked jet.  Perhaps with a better generator and a richer mineral source.

On the other hand, that might make a very good sparkler to celebrate launches and homecomings!  

[Guest]

KSP n00b here so might as well use this thread to introduce myself.

Today I landed Jebediah Kerman on the Mun, where he planted a flag, took a surface sample, and did important science experiments. Then I brought him back and executed a re-entry with Mystery Goo Containers intact and all. Unfortunately he landed straight on top of a mountain, and while he really enjoyed rolling down the steep mountain slope, eventually the 'chute tore off and he blew up.

RIP.

Will try again with a return trajectory with a slightly different inclination than around 90 degrees. And, er, any other good ideas on how to avoid that bleeping mountain? With the crude stuff I'm using I only have so much delta-V on the return trip.

Also, KSP is the best thing EVER.

[eddiew]

Pondered what the smallest thing I could send to Minmus and get back home would be.

Overall, not bad. First vessel to return, so with the bonus from that and just 2 thermometers, 144 science came out of the mission. Overspecced by ~550m/s so might see if I can fit some goo on the next one, or maybe an ECS if I have one available.

Also discovered that you can attach fuel pipes to engines through heatshields, and I shall be abusing this in future! 

 

[KerikBalm]

8 hours ago, eddiew said:

Visited @KerikBalm's new moon Rald for the first time with a small doohickey. Lurking in keostationary orbit, it looked pretty easy to get to and I took a gamble on delta-v requirements and got away with it. Orbital velocity was about 950m/s, atmosphere thin but sufficient to parachute something of this size. Not yet tested whether it has oxygen, but it looks suspiciously like there has been some form of biological transfer over the eons...

Just FYI for more details:

Yes it does have oxygen in its atmosphere. The atmosphere: 2x the surface pressure of Duna, but it has a lower average molecular weight resulting in the atmosphere being just 1.667x as dense as Duna's atmosphere(before taking into account temperature, which I still need to look at), while the gravity is 10% higher than Duna's. So... its easier to land on than duna. Landing speed should be about 80% of what it is on Duna if you want to try a horizontal landing... its generally flatter than Duna.

As rapiers/turboramjets/panthers work due to the O2 presence, and as its orbital velocity is only ~950 m/s... it is super easy to attain orbit with airbreathing engines, and its a really easy place to SSTO and back to. Even without airbreathers, the stock kerbal X can get you to the surface and back safely.

If you pack some science instruments, like the atmospheric analyzer, you'll get the above questions answered, at least provided that you visit the right biomes.

Spoiler

Regarding life and biological transfer:

Relevant surface sample reports:

RaldSrfSplashedKrakenMare = A close examination of the water reveals green specks suspended in the water. Some appear to be moving. The green specks appear to move towards the top of the water more than they move away from it.
        RaldSrfSplashedGreatRiftValley = A close examination of the water reveals aggregates of floating green specks. The green specks appear to move towards the top of the water more than they move away from it.
        RaldSrfSplashedKellasSea = A close examination of the water reveals aggregates of floating green specks. There appears to be a pocket of air trapped in the aggregate that gives the aggregates buoyancy.
        RaldSrfSplashedRivers = A close examination of the water reveals aggregates of floating green specks. They seem to be sticking to the sides of the sample container.
        RaldSrfSplashedCoasts = A close examination of the water reveals floating filaments of green specks.

        RaldSrfLandedRivers = The sample contains greenish slime which tends to form long filaments.

Relevant Crew reports:

        RaldSrfSplashedCoasts = You look out the window and see green everywhere, yet nothing resembling a plant.

        RaldInSpaceLow = The clear association of a green color with the water is a strong sign of photosynthetic life. An alien world waits below you!

        RaldSrfLandedKargyreImpactBasin = You were excited to see signs of life at first. Now you can only think of the trouble you went through to decontaminate yourself in the airlock to protect this planet, and the trouble you'll have to go through when you get back inside to protect yourself and Kerbin.

        RaldSrfLandedKargyreVolcanoes = These volcanoes are huge! you remember how you were told that eruptions of these could spread spores of alien life all over the planet. You curse at the volcano.

^ok, I see that I have the biome name wrong on that one... too much copy and paste, I need to go back and look over these.

 

Goo reports:

        RaldSrfSplashedKellasSea = The Goo likes the water, and seems to be eating the green particles that were allowed inside.

        RaldSrfLandedCoasts = The Goo really likes it here, it seems to be eating the sample of green stuff.

 

Mobile materials lab:

        RaldSrfSplashedKrakenMare = The water appears to be slightly saltier than Kerbin's ocean, and also contains numerous organic compounds.

        RaldSrfSplashedKellasSea = The water appears to be slightly less salty than Kerbin's ocean, with a rich mixture of organic compounds.

        RaldSrfLandedKellasSea = Preliminary analysis indicates the green substance can metabolize common biomolecules produced by life on Kerbin.

        RaldSrfLandedDunes = Preliminary analysis indicates the response to labelled release of nutrients follows an exponential growth curve.

        RaldSrfLandedKargyreImpactBasin = An enzyme test reveals multiple enzymes found on Kerbin are active on the substrates found in these organics. Does the putative life here have a common origin with life on Kerbin?

        RaldSrfLandedRivers = The amino acids detected in the organics are the same as those used by life on Kerbin!

        RaldSrfLandedCoasts = The same 5 nucleic acid bases found in life on Kerbin are detected in the samples!

        RaldFlyingLow = A loose wire in the Science Jr. confirms there is enough oxygen to support combustion here. You close the doors and cut power to the wire.

Atmosphere alysis (a lot of the results are the same across biomes, so just two relevant ones here)

        RaldSrfLandedCoasts = O2 readings appear elevated near the surface, but only during the day.

        RaldFlyingLow = The atmosphere appears to be nearly 50% CO2, 40% N2, and 10% O2.

 

 

 

 

[MaxwellsDemon]

5 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

And, er, any other good ideas on how to avoid that bleeping mountain?

In my experience, the best way to avoid something in an atmospheric landing is to aim at it.