What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Aragosnat]

On ‎9‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 2:21 AM, Benji13 said:

Damn...

That courage to stupidity ratio is harsh. Still cool  

Yeah. Even hired him too.

22 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Felipe?

A friend of yours?

That is the first name of the dev who created (had the idea) of KSP.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Aragosnat

[numerobis]

I decided to play cavekerbal mode, as @GoSlash27 mentioned a while back: no building updates until your R&D is maxed out.

The most significant effects:

• Rather harder to plot a path to Mun when you don't even know if you've got an intercept (because you can't upgrade the tracking center).

• Rather less science is available in space when you can't EVA (because you can't upgrade the astronaut center).

• So much money piles up when you can't sink it into real estate!

It's worth getting the Juno and wheels ASAP so you can milk all the science around KSC.

There's about 300 science to pick up like that on normal settings: 8 biomes for the buildings and crawl way (not counting the launch sites), plus five situations a short roll from base (grassland, tundra, shore landed, shore splashed, water splashed).

And then you can grew crew and thermometer flying over the local biomes, fly to the island airfield for another couple bonus science, and land on the hill above it to get highlands.

Bob is particularly useful on these early runs to be able to get everything in one trip, reusing the goo and materials bay.

[Guest]

Continuing my 1.2-pre aviation-focused career. I built a lower-tech heavy spaceplane: I'm lacking the Vector, a whole bunch of structural components, and a bunch of command/control components from what I'd ideally want, so I had to get a bit creative. It took a lot of work, but I eventually managed to make something that will loft a space station module to LKO without breaking much of a sweat: the Crane. 

The biggest challenge with this one was thrust. Since I don't have the 2.5 metre tri- or quad-couplers nor the Vector, I had to make do with less. The Crane is powered by only four Whiplashes and for rocket power, one Skipper. It struggles to build speed under full load, so I made the Skipper stage-togglable: hitting the space bar switches it on and off. The launch profile is something like:

1. Take off. Climb to about 5k at 10 degrees.
2. Fire the Skipper for about 10 seconds to accelerate past 400 m/s. At this point, the Whiplash ramjet feedback loop kicks in, and it'll start accelerating without assistance.
3. Gradually pitch up to 30 degrees. When the acceleration starts to falter, fire the Skipper again, and this time keep it burning until orbit.

The nice thing about the powerful rocket is that I can keep a clean angle of attack all through the climb.

This was really educational -- I had to tune the aero a lot to make it fly with this "little" power, but the end result is very nice -- it handles well, is balanced under all fuel loads, and gets the mission done nicely.

[Tw1]

Flew Impatience XXII  out to the Desert ruins with some specially enhanced kerbals. 

 

 

Kerbals are impresive climbers. 

 

Due to... an accident, the Impatience  tipped over while the scientists were out exploring. 
The pilot and engineer were unable to righten the vessel, but a solution was found which enabled them to take off, sacrificing the radiators in the process.

 

 

Then I decided I'd use Minmus as a staging post for a scouting mission, first step towards conquering and colonising the galaxy.  Uhhhh, I mean, peacefull science and stuff.

 

 

[Martian Emigrant]

1 hour ago, eddiew said:

It's fine for 1.1.3 as well   Most mods are I think, it tends to only be major versions that upset them ^^

Triple port will be hard, what with the senior being flatter than the others :/  If only they were more concave as the radius increases...

Well the triple port is a failure.

The Senior isn't deep enough to make it dock and leave the other ones alone.

On my first attempt it all look good and when I undocked I pulled the Mid-sized one out. When I undocked that one the Junior was still on my nose. All 3 docked. But on undocking it's as if they all go loose. The ones not specifically told to undock stay magnetic and docked. Funny to look at not amusing.

No amount of tucking worked. If deep enough then they don't work anymore. Don't make contact.

If you have the Senior you want the senior. you can't have the other ones poking out. Sigh.

 

ME

 

[eddiew]

Road trip! Kelley and Doohan Kerman driving the rover, with Roddenberry, Nimoy, Merlin and Lily remaining with the ship.

It's still dawn when Kelley and Doohan roll off the ramp, so they pause for a quick systems check while the sun rises overhead. As the light improves, they set off over 25km of rough terrain on which the Investigator had been unable to safely set down. Mission control knows better than to underestimate the landing distance required on Rald, and will not accept anything less than a 4km strip as viable.

With the survey done and the sun still high, mission control asks if the expedition could drive 50km to the 'nearby' Kellas Sea, a biome as yet unexplored. Since the Ranger Rover is such a pleasure to drive, it's hard to say no to.

On their way, they encountered a miraculous thing; a wide, squarish area of completely level ground and a not-useless 6.7% ore concentration. Planting a flag, they radio back to the Investigator, requesting that the ship come to meet them for a better assessment of the area's suitability as a long term base location.

(Ed: Two contracts with one. Surface base for 5 kerbals - that's the Investigator on its own. Survey with six sites for gravity readings. Total income, about 700,000 roots. From an SSTO. Ranger Rover will be left behind since it won't survive re-entry at Kerbin, but that's still a mighty fine profit margin!)

Also, decided to start a mission log thread to keep track of my... mission logs. A lot of what I post has a chronological flow and needs some context of the previous posts to make sense, so this should help  

 

Edited September 25, 2016 by eddiew

[Andem]

I assassinated an archduke. Explanation comes later.

[Gaarst]

Built a probe set to sail for Mercury using a gravity assist from Venus, the current mission plan only includes a flyby of Mercury since the probe does not have the capability to capture, but it may be placed in an orbit leading to additional flybys, depending on the transfer conditions.

The probe sitting on its ejection stage (the probe itself is 400kg heavy and the assembly is slightly over 4t):

Spoiler

The reduced mass allows the mission to be launched using a light launcher (roughly corresponding to a Soyuz 2.1v since it is derived from my crew LEO launcher itself loosely based on the Soyuz launcher) weighing under 150t:

Spoiler

 

I also started designing a rover for Martian exploration, after a couple of probes have landed on it. The rover is over 600kg but since I'm bad with designing interplanetary stuff (especially in saving mass) it has to be launched on a huge launcher weighing 900t. Still working on that.

The rover with its reentry and landing modules:

Spoiler

The rocket launching it:

Spoiler

 

I also had the second fatal failure of my RSS space program when the Virgo 14 mission capsule carrying 3 Kerbals returning from the lunar space station disintegrated during reentry due to critical damage to the heatshield, despite the adapted trajectory used to reduce the load on it (that's officially; I actually went a bit overconfident and decided installing DRE did not require a redesign of my reentry modules, except the max temp for the heatshield was too low to even hope survive a 11km/s reentry, so boom).

As a consequence the Virgo program (lunar exploration, including lunar landings and a LLO space station) was not extended any further (Virgo 14 was supposed to be the last mission but extensions were considered), and all manned programs (including assembly of a new LEO space station) are on hold waiting for all the manned capsules to be upgraded.

[Zaphod12]

Made a manned Mun landing today.

Nothing too spectacular

[SSgt Baloo]

4 hours ago, Tw1 said:

 

 

I was just getting ready to post my newest project, and now I see this.

The C-57D? Dude, you rock! 

I was working on atmospheric saucers, and ended up making this:


The upper and lower surfaces of the saucer are just procedural nosecones. The top half of the saucer was surface-attached to the cockpit, and maneuvered around using the move and rotate widgets (with the assistance of the Editor Extensions mod).  Imbedded inside the saucer (and also attached to the command pod) are procedural wings, sized to occupy most of the inside of the saucer shell. The lower half of the shell was attached, node-to-node, to the upper half. Everything else was surface-attached to the shell and aligned to, and/or embedded in one of the shells.
 

 

More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/Poor Mans Flying Saucer

[eddiew]

The roadtrip takes a turn for the worse.

Not only do the crew have to abandon the rover (it doesn't survive a return to Kerbin anyway), but mission control dumps them in the armpit of the system while they crunch through 700 science data. (It would have been more, but the rover carried 5/7 of the instruments... something of an oversight on the part of the mission design team there.)

On the whole, we can't be too surprised at the outcome. Merlin, Kelley, Lily, Doohan, Nimoy and Roddenberry Kerman are unanimous in their decision that spending three months plus in a cold, dark, glum corner of Rald is unacceptable, and, unbeknownst to mission control, decide to find a more palatable location.

The Kargyre impact basin seems a good candidate. Not only is it lush, green, and with nice views, but it has some good flat spots as well. In fact, it has some really good flat spots. So good that they wish they still had the rover's ore scanner, because this would be a good base location if it turns up positive. On the other hand, it's even further from the equator than the Kellas sea, so perhaps its better that they don't find out. Besides, if they reported a reading, that would mean admitting to mission control that they aren't at the south pole any more.

Doohan Kerman starts preparing a good technical reason for why they might be short of fuel and unable to return to Kerbin without a top up, something to do with leaky containment fields. Everyone else heads for the beer-fridge and wonders whether it's practical to walk to the lake they saw during the descent. 

If you're reading this from the future; was it Trump or Clinton? If it's not 2017 yet, the complete logs of this mission will be posted on my mission report thread, which will be easier than digging through this one to find the previous bits.

[HazelPine]

Designed a 747 look-a-like for my Kerbal Charter Challenge! Flies as well as it looks, except for the wing flex of over 10m. I need the stiffening mod. Still thinking about what mission it can do, but for now it only passed flight certification:

 

 

And here's a kerbal for scale, to see just how big it is:

[legoclone09]

Sent Jeb to the Mun in the 1.2 prerelease, and got him back, bringing 391 science back. Here's my rocket:

Sending an unmanned lander to the Mun as well, here's that rocket:

and the payload:

[LaytheDragon]

I have created something aesthetically-revolutionary... (potentially-monotonous details on everything are in spoilers)

Spoiler

 

It is a cargo bay utilizing the cargo bay doors as doors (in the picture, one door is opened and one closed), that can fit an entire 10 meter inflatable heatshield through on the circular side. So massive, and with so much aesthetical and useful potential if I can build something both large and stable enough to use it with minimal delta vee loss. One problem though is I get carried away designing inside bay details for what may not work. Unfortunately, these bay doors aerodynamics-wise are useless. but I might look into FAR (I seriously doubt I'll do that) if I can't get one to work in stock.

Note: Clipped Mk2 Inline Cockpits look so cool and different from non-clipped ones. Around the center docking port there are four in the above image. Luckily, all of their significant clipping is going into the useless-except-as-hollow-structural-parts cargo bay parts.

 

 

 

Spoiler

Before physics has loaded, and before it has exploded. I haven't fully decided on if I am going to keep that front, as the front isn't important except that I should replace the remaining draggy cupolas with aerodynamic parts (Luckily I hid two cupolas inside open-able Mk2 cargo bays that I am using as one of the parts closing the bay in airtight aesthetically, so I'd be fine still cupola-wise. These cupolas look like eyes when the bays are open as a plus)

But cannot get anything using it to work without turning into a nuclear blast...

Spoiler

 

This is the first ship I tested the design with (which has too many crew cabins), not the current one in the other above screenshots, that is exploding here. These explode almost instantly, and I cannot figure out why. I shall add many more struts in future testing (of the one in the other above screenshots that I am working on) between the bay doors to see if the clipped doors are causing the problem (even though earlier versions of the one seen exploding didn't explode, those versions were too small to minimize delta vee loss from the bay door weight, and were undetailed and unaerodynamic with too many cupolas)

 

Yet.

Edited September 25, 2016 by LaytheDragon

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Tried to design a compact ejector seat. It worked perfectly when tested on the runway.

In the heat of things...

not so much.

 

(Ignore the HyperEdit, it's open because I was showing someone how to use it).

[LaytheDragon]

6 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Tried to design a compact ejector seat. It worked perfectly when tested on the runway.

If I can get my mothership to actually work, I have space (inside the cargo bays that are used as doors for the massive cargo bay) where I could put those, along with simplistic several-part science data return ejection capsules utilizing the new 0.625 meter heatshields (only problem is my mothership is in sandbox, so I need to A: get it to work and B: work my way to late in my career save). Nice idea!

Edited September 26, 2016 by LaytheDragon

[klond]

Used a crane to put a forklift on top of the VAB in stock 1.1.3.

Fourth try was the charm.  'Teeter-tottered 15 tons and got lucky on this attempt.  Even the song crescendo-ed right at drop-off.

Edited September 26, 2016 by klond

[Workable Goblin]

I started a new career with an eye towards 1.2 (which I can't play right now owing to the issue with Sierra), after thinking about it a lot recently. So far I've gone through most of the really early game and have my second orbital flight going on. I just unlocked Aviation, so I've been grinding through KSC science with my new science plane, and I'm going to start working on Kerbin science once I've wrapped that up (mostly just need to eke out the last drops of Materials/Goo science now). Once that's done I'll start thinking about the Mun and Minmus...

The thing I miss most from 1.2 is the experiment capsule (and the ordering of science parts). It's surprisingly annoying to have to EVA or return experiments to get full value.

[RX2000]

FINALLY completed a rescue mission. Its taken me quite a while to understand how to rendezvous 2 crafts in orbit.

Next I'm probably gonna complete a few more missions to put satellites in orbit. One around Kerbin with a 32km apoapsis, & then one around the Mun.

After that I'm gonna try to get around to sending an unmanned probe to land on the Mun, & then probably a manned flyby of Minmus. I also need to keep trying to do rescue missions so hopefully I'll get better at it.

[Martian Emigrant]

1 hour ago, klond said:

Used a crane to put a forklift on top of the VAB in stock 1.1.3.

Fourth try was the charm.  'Teeter-tottered 15 tons and got lucky on this attempt.  Even the song crescendo-ed right at drop-off.

 

That’s pretty amazing.

When I first saw the crane with the fuel tanks I wondered if you could tweak the weight.

Well done.

All I placed on the VAB today was a flag.

How did she get there you say?

Well you need to read my post which should follow shortly.

 

ME

 

[Martian Emigrant]

Hi all.

Today was meh.

http://imgur.com/a/ynec3

Played with docking ports.

Built a flying saucer or two.

Revisited a VTOL I built long ago when I was younger. IDK April or something. I was newer by far then. I did build it well though. Love it. Makes me want a joystick.

Now maybe I'll know how far I am from the VAB (until I blow it off).

 

ME

[Firemetal]

Got a Comsat network around Duna. Preparing for a big Martian style Ares style Mars mission. Hopefully nobody gets hit on a head by an antenna! 

[Francois424]

Today I imported old designs from earlier versions of KSP (some from version 0.23 even!)... It was a lot of work.  I often had to add mods/parts from older versions to et the craft files to even open up, then remove incompatible parts and swap them with stock ones.  Only after could I delete old parts/mods and keep using my regular Install.  I also found some old 2x2 and 2x3 light arrays from B9 that I brought on-board.  Will be useful on dark planets/moons.

Some of the most important vehicles that I ended-up importing where:

• my Eureka Truck (Mün Science Rover)
• my "Jool Fairy" (Satellite with relays I had back when I played with RemoteTech2... I wonder why I went for that?  )
• Two flying rovers I spent a lot of time balancing/designing back then.
• A few mother ships, most of which are end-game tech. 
• my Solar Cruiser which is a low-tech Fly-by supersized probe (with the new science box this one will gain a lot of dV thanks to jettisoning used experiments).
• And my Jool-5 mission ships.   It's mother ship isn't stock tho. So not sure if I'll use that one or another one.  It's been imported into 1.1.3 successfully nonetheless.

So I launched the "Laythe Ascender", the "Tylo Lander Mk.II", a Monoprop remote controlled Tug, and the mission fuel tank... and docked them all together. 
Now If I decide what to use as a mother ship, I'll be ready for my first Jool-5 since 0.25.

Of course I am not one to post here without paying due with at least ONE photo of my evening's work.  So here it is :

My Jool-5 payload (from top-left to bottom-right) : The "Laythe Ascender", the "Tylo Lander Mk.II", The automated "Monoprop Tug", and the mission fuel tank.

 

The Laythe Ascender uses some modded parts, but has stock engines and ramp intake, mods only make it look less... well... stock fuel tank-y.  I love Necrobone's "long landing legs" as well.
I wanted to replace parts on the Tylo Lander but decided not to, to remain as stock as possible.  I would only have saved about 10 parts anyways, and 1.2 is coming so did not bother.  6'400 dV (2'650 after tylo).
The tug is just an RCS tank (the 750 units variant), 4 RTGs (great for going Jool and beyond), the 2,5m remote control and a 2,5m ASAS; already it served me really well in docking stuff.
The Fuel tank holds 9'222 LF / 11'270 Ox (thanks to the fuel-containing 3,75-to-2,5m adapters) and weights-in at 115 tons.  That is enough to completely refuel the Tylo Lander Mk.II five times over !
So far the whole thing weights 212 tons without the Mothership.

I've tested the landers thanks to Hyperedit, and even tho fuel is tight for Vall and I need to ditch the Laythe Ascender (completing the orbit by JetPack is required), I am very satisfied with the results.
If all goes well we might be seeing some great Jool-5 pictures in the upcoming weeks.  I really love the fact that all that time spent designing these things in 0.23-0.25 is *still* relevant in 1.1.3 !

Thanks for reading, and see you later !

Edited September 26, 2016 by Francois424

[kotomikun]

Not to be outdone by Jeb's unnecessary jaunt to Minmus with 4 tourists, Val blasted off with 10, from three separate contracts, and planned to complete three additional contracts along the way just to show off.

 

The "Tourist Trap X" has 2.5-meter tanks, but no 2.5-meter engines, which is definitely for style and not because the engineers haven't gotten the bigger engines to stop exploding yet. It even has a teensy Spark in the middle, to fulfill an absurdly lucrative contract to test it on a Minmus flyby.

 

Some of the tourists demanded a Mun flyby--lumpy gray spheres, so hot right now--so Val used it to gravity-assist vaguely in the direction of Minmus.

 

Gliding in towards the landing site, Chaddred thought he saw space-yeti tracks. KSC assures us it was a hallucination caused by tainted snacks.

 

One dangerously zigzaggy landing sequence later (need more reaction wheels on version 2.0...), the party bus came to a complete stop.

 

The ten-elevenths of the crew lacking astronaut training (a.k.a. jetpack training) couldn't leave the vehicle for photo ops, but they seemed to enjoy the experience anyway.

 

The landing legs managed to survive reentry, and turned out to be essential because eleven parachutes apparently aren't enough to get the landing speed low enough for those wimpy Hitchhikers... the capsule, that is, not the kerbals.

 

Even so, the hardworking parachutes attempted to stop the craft as it slid down a hill at one meter per second...

 

...and then it fell over. But nobody died of acute explosionitis (nor did they black out momentarily and forget to pay for the trip), so Val declared it a success.

[JadeOfMaar]

Valentina was once again tasked with returning Jebediah, but also an engineer, Dilyon Kerman (named after my best friend who introduced me to KSP) from the site of a surface base. What is this...the third time? Anticipating his quarrel, Gene personally informed Val to promise him that the next time any bases or stations need to be deployed, Billy-Bobsy Kerman will be put in its survey station instead of him.

Spoiler

Mortimer, in charge of finances, cried a river. Weighing in at just over 200 parts and likely 2Mil this high-tier test deployment focuses on Karbonite and carries a pressurized habitat theme complete with airlock modules. Expecting Karbonite to be very scarce in most places, it comes with a blistering 24 karbonite drills and nuclear storage to power them for a few decades in Jool's shadow.

After the pickup, Jebediah was flown to a nearby island where a STOVL had been left behind from a previous surface base test deployment, a low-tier but high-PR venture by Insanity Aerospace. The mission was to return both him and the small craft. (There's a minor glitch with the inline VTOL engine. It occasionally forgets that something's attached behind it so it despawns its shroud and looks...just wrong. Won't stop me from using it in more crafts though.)

Jeb went Jebbing™ of course. He nearly buzzed the control tower, dodged the ground by inches, and made a landing attempt on the VAB. That attempt sadly failed, so to the ground with him. Once again, he's happy to fly something and be back at home base, ready for the next flight.

IRL, I have to turn to an alternate PC now, as the main one returned to its habit of power tripping before KSP finishes loading. I've tried recording this on the other PC but the recorder software lags the game somewhat and compensates by dropping the frame size. Even so, KSP runs more smoothly there. Looks like I can happily have 300 parts in physics range at a given time, rather than just 100 parts. But the monitor is smaller and I'm sacrificing SVE. Scatterer remains.

Edited September 26, 2016 by JadeOfMaar