What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Crocket]

Off-topic real quick: does anyone have any tips for designing a 1.25m (or smaller) manned Mun lander? I'm trying to get into the habit of not usin' those dern Rocka-max tanks.

[RoboRay]

14 hours ago, Crocket said:

Off-topic real quick: does anyone have any tips for designing a 1.25m (or smaller) manned Mun lander? I'm trying to get into the habit of not usin' those dern Rocka-max tanks.

Something like this?

Yep, from the Munar surface to home on just RCS thrusters!

This design is a year or more old, but the .craft file may still work if you want to try it out:  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14176520/Sparrowhawk.craft

(Fairings and Mun transfer stage included... build your own launcher.)

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by RoboRay

[Crocket]

1 minute ago, RoboRay said:

Something like this?

Thanks! I'll take inspiration from that!

[RoboRay]

11 hours ago, ThatPilot said:

That's a sweet probe! Can we have .craft?

I posted the vehicle over in the Spacecraft Exchange: 

Edited September 6, 2016 by RoboRay

[eddiew]

It flies... it fliiiesss!

...yeah, it's a bit large. Turns out the Ranger Rover is too wide for an MK3 cargo ramp, and what with "Blocked: yes" being the bane of existence, the engineering team decided that it was easier to design a new spaceplane rather than a new rover. Thus; MK4 spaceplane parts were put on the table and the team fell upon them like they were chocolate coated coffee beans.

175 tons wet, around 125 of those reach LKO and deliver 4.3km/s - or a bit more than that if you happen to be heading somewhere with an oxygen atmosphere. Rald transfer costs about 930m/s, leaving an awful lot of jet fuel and plenty of oxidiser for the vernors to make a controlled descent. Despite the size, it flies remarkably well. The 200% scaled wings and rapiers keep the part count down to a respectable 132 including the cargo, and runway TWR is 0.7 quickly rising to 1 and above. Once the outboard nacelles are dry, it becomes quite manoeuvrable, and landing - especially with vernor assistance - is a relaxed affair.

Have to be careful during the ascent, since the mk4 cargo bays/ramps aren't fully protecting the contents from heat, but limiting the throttle to 30% after switching to rocket mode is enough to keep the AP at 1 minute ahead without sending temperatures soaring, and it's safe to kick the throttle above 40km. Aerobraking at Rald is a mere 1400m/s and doesn't present a problem - although it seems unlikely that the rover would survive coming home to Kerbin. That's fine, there will be contracts generating for it on Rald, so it can live there from here on.

The Investigator having set down mid way between volcano and canyons biomes, Ranger Rover is going to have a lot of ground to cover getting between them. Happily it's stable at 50m/s and 4x timewarp, so basically as good as a low altitude jet plane without the worries over landing or fuel   As before, even if it tumbles, the only edges and corners that can touch the ground are either wheels, or structural parts rated for 80m/s impact, so it's basically indestructible unless it falls off a cliff. Should a wheel pop, 4-star engineer Thystle Kerman is on hand to sort it out.

Depending on how the mission goes, it's possible to re-dock the Ranger Rover and move the entire ship to another location - but mission control are waiting to see how fatigued the kerbonauts are after the initial targets are met. Unfortunately, night kind of crept up fast and Leo and Thystle will probably have to pitch a tent until morning. Their RTG should keep them warm through the night  

[KerrMü]

I had a little bit of time to continue my career save this week and ´ve been quite buisy.

Today I built the Beagle 1 to rescue 2 Kerbals from Mun. It went better than expected.

Now I am kinda tempted to build a few alternative payloads like a rover, crew pod, mining pod and so on and build a new station around Mun that can store all that stuff and support 2 Beagles. Ohhh the possibilities...

 

And earlier this week I designed a new interplanetary spaceship with ion propulsion to get my Kerbals out to other planets. Normally I would build it in sections and assemble it in orbit, but since this one isn´t very big I thought, what the heck, just put rockets on it and see what happens.

this is the highest and prettiest Korolev cross I´ve ever had.

I must say I am so pleased with this little ship, that I made my very first blueprint thingy:

I have no idea how much delta V it´s got, but I´ve made a test flight. Starting from a 1000km circular parking orbit I set it to prograde and fired up the engines. Quite some time later it left Kerbins SOI at 14000m/s, still burning and with 5% fuel left in the tanks. So... enough... maybe.

And now, after writing this, I´ll send it on a little test mission to Ike with a completely overpowered lander in tow. Let´s see how it goes.

At last a little beauty shot:

sry for too many pics, but I couldn´t resist

Rocket on guys 

Edited September 6, 2016 by KerrMü
wrong pic

[Francois424]

I finally came down from me being out of patience earlier, and decided to land the ring part of my mothership to minmus for some R&R and mining.

Here is what she look like :

Not as bad as I thought, tho not enough Oxidizer tanks to re-fill the Lander.  She is modular, so I could replace the "Science package" (underneath the Ares Capsule) by a fat full Oxidizer tank... or Refuel in a couple landings.
It's all fun and fine on Minmus, but on Moho it might not even be possible/worth it... So far it's been a success, but I think I'm going to stay with the miner/low-G world lander to refuel the ring next time.

 

On another note:

Spoiler

13 minutes ago, KerrMü said:

I had a little bit of time to continue my career save this week and ´ve been quite buisy.

Today I built the Beagle 1 to rescue 2 Kerbals from Mun. It went better than expected.

Now I am kinda tempted to build a few alternative payloads like a rover, crew pod, mining pod and so on and build a new station around Mun that can store all that stuff and support 2 Beagles. Ohhh the possibilities...

 

And earlier this week I designed a new interplanetary spaceship with ion propulsion to get my Kerbals out to other planets. Normally I would build it in sections and assemble it in orbit, but since this one isn´t very big I thought, what the heck, just put rockets on it and see what happens.

this is the highest and prettiest Korolev cross I´ve ever had.

I must say I am so pleased with this little ship, that I made my very first blueprint thingy:

I have no idea how much delta V it´s got, but I´ve made a test flight. Starting from a 1000km circular parking orbit I set it to prograde and fired up the engines. Quite some time later it left Kerbins SOI at 14000m/s, still burning and with 5% fuel left in the tanks. So... enough... maybe.

And now, after writing this, I´ll send it on a little test mission to Ike with a completely overpowered lander in tow. Let´s see how it goes.

At last a little beauty shot:

sry for too many pics, but I couldn´t resist

Rocket on guys 

Looks like I was outdone today, this is a beauty right here...how many parts all fully assembled in Orbit ?

Edited September 6, 2016 by Francois424

[DaElite101]

@Francois424, what mod do you have that gives you those engines? Near Future Propulsion or something?

[kraden]

This was yesterday, but still!

Adventures with the Kerbal Space Agency: An Intruder on Minmus.

Spoiler

Mission Control gives the go-ahead for the KSAS Intruder to launch shortly after dusk.  Her mission is a simple one, to land on Minmus for some science and return home safely.

Jeb's piloting skills allowed the crew to keep the booster all the way to Minmus descent.  Its intended lifespan was only as far as orbit.

Jeb sets the Intruder down gently and gets a photo taken (not shown) while Bob gets to work on gathering science data and cleaning the instruments for another run.

"Jeb, do you think we have enough fuel to hop over to that plateau before heading home"?

Jeb simply grinned and climbed back into the pilot's seat.  Bill tried to protest, citing something about the "mission plan" and not having communication with Mission Control to get approval, but Jeb was already in the zone.

"Besides, if we can't tell them what we're doing, they can't tell us 'no'", Jeb said.

"It was within sight anyway". Bob tried to console.

With more science gathered, Jeb and Bob were ready to head home, much to Bill's relief.  Fully intending to explain their deviation from plan to Mission Control Bill eagerly waited for Kerbin to show in the window...

...only to discover that something was jamming their signal.  Despite having two functional antennas, Bill couldn't get a signal through (bug?). Jeb had a good laugh about it and told him to relax.  He then plotted a course back to Kerbin and burned.  Unfortunately Jeb had them doing several aerobrake passes and Bill just couldn't stand it.  While Jeb was busy looking out the window, he climbed up through the hatch and hit the button to deploy their newly installed ballute.

With many whispered thanks to the R&D staff, Bill sat back in his seat for their descent.  Their landing was a little more rough than usual but everyone made it out unscathed and R&D was thrilled to have a lot more science to mull over.

 

[Francois424]

18 minutes ago, DaElite101 said:

@Francois424, what mod do you have that gives you those engines? Near Future Propulsion or something?

Those are FTmN280 from the old "Kommit Nucleonics" mod.  It went abandon back in 0.23 (or was it 0.22?) and I had to fix them myself over the patches.
More details here :

Unfortunately, Kommit is still MIA and legal mumbo-jumbo prevents me uploading my parts pack to this day (unless someone here can overrule that since the guy does not appear to even want to come back).
They where, and still are, my favorite engines in the game.  Very good for parts count (One FTmN280 is worth 4 of the regular nuke, and weight less than 4) and obviously efficiency.
 

 

[N_Danger]

With landing vehicles and a station waiting at Duna, Duna 1 launches with Jeb, Bob and Donny.

Then 2 days later Duna 2 with Val,Jenya and Bill rolls out to catch the same launch window.

Now we have a full crew at Duna. After a rest much science will be had.

 

[GarrisonChisholm]

Tonight I finally got back to my Astronaut program!  The 6 of them (The Four +2) have been spending most of their time supporting the robotic missions which are slowly visiting every region in the solar system.  There have been a few balled landings on Mun & Min, but the science rewards were flooding in in such a deluge that the astronaut program has spent the vast majority of its time on the ground.  Their single highlight last year was completing a long duration test of our life support systems by orbiting the moon for a year.  Much (and Mulch) was learned, and many of our design opinions informed.  The long duration craft was hideously ungainly and would have been fairly perilous to send on an extra-planetary trek.

Our new long duration craft has dispensed with the "progressive" avenue of supplies, and instead is relaying on sheer life support packs.  So, after a "draft" crafted was built and simulated and failed upon, a new craft was designed to keep 6 people alive for 1296 days, which means, yes, 1296 100kg Life Support packs.  The new rocket was completed in a VAB which grew more and more inefficient in its processes as the work progressed, and the 2300 ton, 2400 *part* craft was finally loaded into the simulator for a test.

...and, as I left for work 90 minutes later, the computer was STILL trying to load that rocket to the launch pad...

[CatastrophicFailure]

12 minutes ago, GarrisonChisholm said:

...yes, 1296 100kg Life Support packs.  The new rocket was completed in a VAB which grew more and more inefficient in its processes as the work progressed, and the 2300 ton, 2400 *part* craft was finally loaded into the simulator for a test.

...and, as I left for work 90 minutes later, the computer was STILL trying to load that rocket to the launch pad...

. . . 

Your Kerbals have made it to the Mün & back but haven't figured out what a cupboard is?

[Alpha 360]

I built my first plane in career mode and surveyed two places and a parachute test. Planes are such great fun in ksp! What I don't understand is that though I am more than capable of flying past the mun, I haven't got a contract yet! When do you get mun fly-by contracts? I am on the level 3, not tier 3 but tier 1-level 3, just so people don't get confused. 

[Sharpy]

I'm trying BIG mining.

2 days ago my prospector found a place with >9.6% ore concentration, which also happens to be an almost flat area (most of these high-concentration points happen on steep slopes).

Now I've launched an invasioninstallation at Minmus. Several big rigs. 20 ISRUs. 27 big ore tanks.  80 gigantors. 2 cranes to deploy these gigantors. 8 drills... that's way too few drills. Will be launching more drills soon. Also, cooling for the ISRUs (drills have that built in), and a tanker. I need to design a beautiful, huge tanker. Possibly also enough batteries to carry this through the night.

 

[GwynJHawke]

Launched a long range transfer ship. It can carry 54 kerbals if need be and has two cargo bays capable of hauling either smaller ships, fuel tanks, probes, or smaller space station components. It's fuel capacity and Cycletron VASMIR engines give it a really long and broad reach on destinations. It's over powered as far as its reactors go, letting all four run at 2/3rds of their rated output, granting extended core life and uranium fuel supplies.  There are some cons however. The engines only run on either Xenon or Argon, which is much harder to come buy in the outer system mod. The Near Future tech has an atmospheric harvester that sucks the rare gases from any gravitational body that has atmosphere. That doesn't leave a lot of options in the outer system past Sarnus and it's moons, and at that point, any trip out there will take a decade or more.  It does raise an interesting issue and challenge in ship design when it comes to missions past Sarnus. I'll have to mess around with some self sufficient ship designs specific to each planetary system. You can't really run on a fuel that you can't mine in a system when the closest gas station is 10+ years away.

[eddiew]

Triggered the blue skies kraken. All ships lost and uncontrollabke in a blue void with no planetary surfaces to be seen...

[Salvator]

I've built a tilt-wing scientific plane for Duna. This way it should be much easier to get around the planet. Rotatrons are from IR of course, I've used foldable electric propellers from Firespitter and the craft is powered by one M-EXP KerboPower fission generator from Near Future Electrical. This ensures approximately 5 years of uninterrupted flight . I just hope the aerodynamic conditions aren't too different from my expectations and that it will be flight-capable on the planet... Sorry for the bad lighting conditions:

So i took it for a ride. After some minor changes.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Salvator

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Alpha 360 said:

I built my first plane in career mode and surveyed two places and a parachute test. Planes are such great fun in ksp! What I don't understand is that though I am more than capable of flying past the mun, I haven't got a contract yet! When do you get mun fly-by contracts? I am on the level 3, not tier 3 but tier 1-level 3, just so people don't get confused. 

The contracts are random. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. If you really want one of them, decline some of the ones with low Prestige penalty to decline; it'll generate a new one and eventually you'll get lucky.

– My Minmus mining operation is about to deliver its first load of fuel -- one mid-sized Rockomax' worth. I now have four Big Drills feeding one small refinery, and it is actually producing fuel in useful amounts. Still a quite a long way from break-even, but now all it'll take is time. 

I also put Minmus Fueling Station into equatorial orbit around the place -- it's basically a maximum-size Rockomax with some monoprop tanks attached, with docking ports of all sizes, plus minimal command and control to make docking easy. So now I have a total of three permanent installations on and around Minmus: Minmus Mining Network, Enteprise Station (for science), and Minmus Fueling Station. 

Once Duna and Kerbin align for an interplanetary trip, I should be able to make full use of that. I'll be sending Barsoom Station up first; that's a science operation with a reusable Ike lander and a non-reusable Duna lander/rover, lab, and crew facilities plus enough supplies for a couple of Ike landings. Shortly on its heels will follow a mining/surveying operation based on the Minmus one, which will produce fuel for repeat missions as well as exploration of the outer planets. 

Also, I need stronger rover wheels. I busted a couple when landing and assembling Minmus Mining Network. It doesn't affect it while parked but does mean it's not going anywhere much; I'll have to have an engineer repair them at some point.

(I hope Squad will do something about the wheels in a patch at some point. One blowout was legit; I got into a bit of a situation when landing it and it got damaged in the process. The other blew when I docked the components -- something happened and 30 tons of spacecraft leapt right up and then down again, damaging the wheels. That feels wrong: there just shouldn't be the kind of energy involved in docking to cause something like that.)

[TheEpicSquared]

Got another chapter done for KSP Megastructures. Hooray for school study days! (and weekends)

Edited September 7, 2016 by TheEpicSquared

[MaxwellsDemon]

The Isis 25 lander landed successfully on a somewhat precariously steep slope near a monolith close to the Mun's south pole.  Pilot Brooke Kerman and scientist Boboly Kerman made their EVAs fast and to the point, in case the lander decided to start sliding downslope, but they came off without incident.  After rendezvousing with Horus 25, the crew returned to Kerbin safely.

VAB-wise, I'm still tinkering with Duna mission concepts and working out an expected timeline for a Duna mission, taking K-D and D-K transfer windows into account.  And I'm wondering if I'll get there before 1.2 comes out, because it's a safe bet I'll be restarting my campaign when that happens!

[capi3101]

Fired up KSP last night to launch the Beep-Beep 7 science probe to Mun. Realized I'd forgotten to add a transfer stage, so I did a quick re-design. Launch was largely successful, though the main booster ran out of juice before making orbit. Made it to orbit on the transfer stage, which had been designed with a comfortable margin of error (that no longer exists). Transfer burn to Mun has been made, though I'm leary of the transfer stage having sufficient juice to put the probe itself in a stable Munar orbit. Just means I'm going to wind up with a hunk of junk whizzing around Kerbin's inter-lunar space (really not even that; the transfer stage has its own probe core and panels, so I'm sure the game will treat it as a probe in its own right). The probe itself has about 2,000 m/s of delta-V so I'm confident the mission to get me some mo' money will be success despite the early hiccups.

With some of the other science nodes unlocked thanks to Bob's successful crap-gathering mission to Mun, I had the time to re-design the Gurney 7 rescue ship, giving it rudimentary RCS capabilities and adding the missing decoupler between the pod and the retro package (something that I forgot when I sent the craft up on Kathbertha's rescue mission a few days ago). The redesigned craft was launched to successfully rescue Wilful Kerman, another effin' pilot, from low Kerbin orbit.

Got the contract for a Minmus flyby - I'm hoping to get the full contract to Explore Minmus soon. I'm tempted to go ahead and send Bob that way anyway; Munar Prospector 7 was really designed for Minmus and I'm confident the craft could easily hit all of the minty moon's biomes in a single hop.

I should start taking screenies again.

[Kerbinchaser]

I built a Mun station, but I accidentally reverted to a previous save and lost everything.  

[Sharpy]

Using KAS and Spider engine hinges, I made a flatbed truck with deployable ramp trampoline

 

[XB-70A]

Tried to make a new full stock medium/heavy S.S.T.O. in what I called Project Talos :

But it's another failure by far. It's easy to handle, pretty stable during the climb with its T-tail and there is enough fuel for orbiting to 200 x 200. Just the center of thrust is so shifted the craft can't complete the circularization. Even with just two R.A.P.I.E.R. engaged it will rise its nose crazily if I go over 40-45% of thrust.