What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Guest]

Planning a minimal kerbaled Duna return mission, built around a key 1.2-pre component: the science canister. Crew is one pilot + one scientist. Vessel consists of a science pack + lander, orbiter, and booster. Science pack also carries a biiig cluster of parachutes. Scientist lives on orbiter, pilot lives in lander, both in Mk 1 lander cans. All components will be lofted into orbit by SSTO spaceplane, and the heaviest one I'm able to build with my current tech can handle about 5-8 ton payloads in a 1.5 length Mk 3 cargo bay, which puts some constraints on the design. 

I think I've got it mostly together, will do final tweaking and launch tonight; there's a launch window coming up.

Mission profile is:

1. Loft components to LKO and assemble them. This will take at least four launches: one for each component, and one, perhaps two, for fuel.
2. Climb about halfway to Mun orbit, final refueling mission.
3. Burn to Duna by way of Mun for a grav assist.
4. Enter eccentric Duna orbit.
5. Do science high and low and in high atmosphere; scientist will reset experiments every time, results stored in science can.
6. Raise vessel to safe orbital altitude.
7. Detach lander. Do science on the way down (not goo or materials). Store results in science can.
8. Land. I hope I'll be able to do this with minimal fuel expenditure, with all those parachutes.
9. Do science, EVA, surface sample. Store results in can.
10. Take off, orbit, RV with with orbiter. Scientist resets experiments.
11. If remaining fuel permits -- and I think it should:
    1. Orbit Ike. 
    2. Science high and low, store, reset.
    3. Land on Ike. Science, surface sample, store results.
    4. Take off, RV with orbiter.
12. Reconfigure vessel for return mission -- this only includes the lander and orbiter's command module:
    1. Ditch science pack.
    2. Dock lander with orbiter's command module.
    3. Transfer remaining fuel from booster to lander.
    4. Ditch booster.
13. When return window opens, burn out of Duna using the lander's engines, and get homeward
14. Grav brake off the Mun, then burn down to as low (safe) orbit as remaining fuel permits.
15. Launch recovery mission: heavy SSTO which will take the return vessel into its warm embrace.
16. Land at KSC.

The only thing that mildly sours this for me is that putting all that science into a lab would have much greater RoI. If I really feel bad about it, I will transfer it into Mun Station One's lab instead of bringing it down to Kerbin. I just really want to do this type of mission, which will have several firsts for me -- first kerbaled interplanetary return mission, first take-off from Duna, first use of scientist's ability to reset experiments somewhere other than a station with a lab (which can now do it directly).

Pictures will follow once I'm confident it'll work. I'll have to do the dV calculations again just to make sure; with no KER it's quite a lot of manual work there...

[Sharpy]

4 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@Sharpy I'd really like to see a pic of this thing on Minmus that's too big for a solar farm with standard solar efficiency. o_o And these home-made nuclear reactors.

I commonly use Mk2 Expansion and Near Future Everything but have almost never touched that Mk2 part..... This is blasphemy. D:

Pre-deployment pic.

The craft had no common entrance, no lights, no windows, a totally closed bay, just the ventral bay, that left too little clearance for a kerbal to squeeze through once opened, leaving a tiny gap. It was also too big to slice it open from the outside - KIS 'detach' works in certain range of part's CoM, and that range happened to fall within the huge MK4 cargo bays. But as the ventral bays were being opened, the ship would skip a little. There was a short moment when a kerbal could try to squeeze in and hope not to get squished. And that was a one-way deal, as to repeat it, the bay would need to be closed... slicing the trapped kerbal in half.

So, Bill went in. And it was the only time in KSP when I was genuinely creeped out.

But at last, Bill found the weak spot, sliced the Space Hulk open, and with help of Annard and his gantry...

escaped the deathtrap.

 

Well, almost. He had to go back in, to finish the slicing. He had a bit of a psychotic episode afterwards. Or maybe the machine got his legs. Anyway, it took him a good few minutes to stand up.

At last he was able to see the thing being pulled apart (old screen that feels very victorious to me)

and others helped him to put his fears to rest, by putting the redundant remains of the hulk into a spacecraft frog in pants.

Then they loaded up the truck with radiators and decorated the remaining structures with radiators.

 

Anyway, why so much power? Well, on the left of the truck with radiators you see the OSE Workshop's 3D printing lab.

For most parts, it needs Material Kits, which it produces from ore - and the area is very ore-rich. But for some, it needs Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals. The area is devoid of those in mineable amounts, but it has some, rather small amount of dirt, which the workshop's attached extractor can filter and purify into these - but at extremely low efficiency. The 32 drills mining dirt would work during the day, but stop for the night, and deprive the workshop and extractor of power too. And that's where reactors step in...

 

 

 

[oversoul]

Reverted to v1.1.3.

[tg626]

Sent 3 missions to the moon.  Basically, Apollo 10, 11, and 12.  

Used Kerbal creator for the first time to round out the veterans, adding Sally and Liu Kerman to my roster.  They crewed Artemis I (Apollo 12).  

I already have a relay sat trailing the Mun and a survey sat in polar orbit.

Flown missions in v1.2 thus far:

• RelaySat I
• Munar Surveyor
• CSM TV (Little Joe)
• Artemis TV1 (Apollo 10)
• Artemis TV2 (Apollo 11)
• Artemis I (Apollo 12)
• Eris TV1 (Ares I)

Edited September 27, 2016 by tg626

[DerekL1963]

Still working up towards the Jool 5 challenge.   Even if I don't follow through, I'm pretty pleased that I've been able to land and return to orbit at Laythe, Val, and Tylo.  I've been playing since 0.19 and never done that.

In preparations for the work below, to avoid getting caught by mods upgrading to 1.2, and to ensure I stay within the rules of the challenge;

• Installed a clean copy of KSP v1.13 and after verifying they were within the rules of the challenge, installed my basic suite of (non part) mods.
• Ran down the allowed mod list for the challenge and downloaded and set aside those I'm likely to use.
• Moved my existing lander designs to the dedicated challenge install and made sure they would load.

After that, I went to "work";

• Continued optimizing the Tylo/Val and Laythe landers.
• Flew the Tylo lander from the proposed orbit of my mothership to Tylo to validate self ferry capacity.
• Validated that I can refuel the core of the Tylo lander and self-ferry it to Val.
• Flew the Laythe lander from the proposed orbit of my mothership to Laythe to validate self ferry capacity.

All the ferrying about also let me gauge the capacity my tanker/crew transfer vessel will need - just a hair under two X200-16's or one X200-32 at most.  I'm going with two X200-16's (since the Tylo-Val leg requires one X200-16 that will provide a reference point) plus one X200-8 for margin.

[Benji13]

4 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

Still working up towards the Jool 5 challenge.   Even if I don't follow through, I'm pretty pleased that I've been able to land and return to orbit at Laythe, Val, and Tylo.  I've been playing since 0.19 and never done that.

In preparations for the work below, to avoid getting caught by mods upgrading to 1.2, and to ensure I stay within the rules of the challenge;

• Installed a clean copy of KSP v1.13 and after verifying they were within the rules of the challenge, installed my basic suite of (non part) mods.
• Ran down the allowed mod list for the challenge and downloaded and set aside those I'm likely to use.
• Moved my existing lander designs to the dedicated challenge install and made sure they would load.

After that, I went to "work";

• Continued optimizing the Tylo/Val and Laythe landers.
• Flew the Tylo lander from the proposed orbit of my mothership to Tylo to validate self ferry capacity.
• Validated that I can refuel the core of the Tylo lander and self-ferry it to Val.
• Flew the Laythe lander from the proposed orbit of my mothership to Laythe to validate self ferry capacity.

All the ferrying about also let me gauge the capacity my tanker/crew transfer vessel will need - just a hair under two X200-16's or one X200-32 at most.  I'm going with two X200-16's (since the Tylo-Val leg requires one X200-16 that will provide a reference point) plus one X200-8 for margin.

Sounds good, don't forget to post it here.

What did I do today?

In 1.1.3 my SAS kept overheating my landing legs. I had to turn 'Ignore Max Temperature' on to stop them from exploding.

 

 

In 1.2 I tested the trucks:

Nope. They still don't start. Fingers crossed for 1.3.

[eddiew]

I had a moment of rebellion and used my gaming hour to play Subnautica 

But at the back of my mind, I was planning a Laythe mission   TLDR, I want a small VTOL spaceplane with a docking port on the front so that the Odyssey can tow it out to Jool. It also needs at least 2.5km/s in vacuum so's it can land on Vall for the anomaly. Tylo might have to wait... my KR&D'd nervas are mighty beasts indeed, but it would need more than one to push the TWR high enough, and the transition to VTOL mode for landing would be nasty at 1g in vacuum.

Or I could make a Tylo lander with a docking port at both ends, so it can chain with the spaceplane and both of them can go to Jool in the same mission  

(I've recently found myself designing things in my head while not playing the game, and pondering how they will balance and look. This is odd, because I'm not usually a visual thinker... long term exposure KSP is doing strange things to my brain )

[DunaRocketeer]

I've landed a cargo ship at my Duna Base. It was launched months ago in real-life time, and is now a outdated variant of what I'm currently using. I found myself wishing I was flying the newer design, but it got the job done, making it down to the surface with little fuss.

The cargo was a series of wing and panel parts, legs and grabbing units. Most of these parts were used to widen my cargo offloading ramp/rover - making the removal of cargo from ships a much easier and less careful process.

[steve_v]

Played around in 1.2-pre/stock sandbox.

Hullo Laythe, long time no-see. Haven't taken an SSTO here without mods since 0.24 IIRC.
Spaceplane might be a little bit OP for the task, and landing it will be somewhat interesting. Makes LKO with ~800m/s to kill, but this will be its first re-entry...

Edited September 27, 2016 by steve_v

[steedcrugeon]

My game time was mostly spent hopping backwards and forward between my science vessels as I time-warped towards my Eve probe vessel's first manoeuvre node. Using USI-LS and for some reason every so often (on the vessels equipped with stock mk2 cockpit non-inline version, probably has no bearing) the EC would run down until I manual 'flew' them where upon it would revert to maximum EC value. This has hindered my other missions progress (I can't warp faster than 10,000 for a minute or so) but does mean that I have farmed science from my MPL quite efficiently. Also meant that during periods of transmissions I could get on and model the new parts I'm putting together.

[Samszee]

Finally built, launched and landed an outpost on Minmus (more for a quest than anything) upon landing realized my long stay crew of level 1's was absent and Jeb my lv 3 hero was happily piloting and now stuck on Minmus. Its ok i have a lander with science modules from a previous land on Minmus, swap out the science bay for crew quarters all good. This ship can land and more or less make it back might need a rescue but it will be close to kerbin at least. Perform my first targeted landing and was only about 3k's out easy few EVA's to swap Jeb in and then back home it is. Except i launched the wrong way, away from kerbin somehow, blissfully unaware until running out of fuel.... and now Jeb is in my first Kerbin escape trajectory ship, orbiting the sun... no clue how to catch up to him but his orbit does overlap Kerbin's so one day he may get pulled in. 

[Sharpy]

1 hour ago, Benji13 said:

In 1.2 I tested the trucks:

Nope. They still don't start. Fingers crossed for 1.3.

I'm holding my fingers crossed for SXT in 1.2. It has these trucks, but in 1.1.3 they are impossible to drive - they just slide randomly with no traction, friction or torque. The wheels are far, far more borked than stock.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3) Spent most of the day in utter frustration trying to get the core module of the Munport 7 space station to launch from KSC; no matter what I tried, no matter what I did, the damn thing would flip out of control after making it up only about 5,000 meters. It was when I was finally ready to throw a discount brick through someone else's computer that I said "well, what the hell - let's see what this thing looks like in FAR. It looked like this:

Ooh...pretty pretty voxels...

Traced the problem to a conflict between FAR and Flexible Docking Ports; I replaced them with regular Clamp-o-Trons and got the damn thing to the Mün.

Tonight I'll start getting ready to send tourists to the station. Time to recoup some money if at all possible.

Edited September 27, 2016 by capi3101
stylistic changes

[Bomaye]

Delivered 1232,6t of cargo to the polar airfield and flew back:

Wheel bug and phantom force made me land early:

[Corona688]

8 hours ago, Sharpy said:

So, Bill went in. And it was the only time in KSP when I was genuinely creeped out.

KSP version of this (0:50 onwards):

https://youtu.be/09Ghbc9zZSs?t=49

 

[Guest]

Lofted the kerbaled Duna mission lander module to orbit. Next up is the orbiter module, then connecting the two. I'll probably use a construction crew (=two pilots) for this part, since at this point the lander module has no power because the heatshield assembly is blocking the engine ports.

[Magzimum]

Today, I answered my own question on the forum!  

tl;dr :

I realized the answer while I was writing the post.

Longer version :

I built a large rover that can move fuel from my mining station to a tanker ship (*).

So, drove the rover from the mine to the tanker, and docked with it. No problem (**). I docked with the Klaw (Advanced Grabbing Unit) and summoned the Kraken. Upon disconnecting, the rover started to jiggle and bounce. First a little, but soon it bounced visibly, as in the picture below, and eventually so high that 8 wheels (the tires) broke on landing, and it nearly flipped itself. 

So, I was gonna post a question on the forum, to ask if that problem is location-dependent, or rover-dependent... and as I pasted the picture, I noticed the physics-warp-3x in the top-left corner of my own picture... and I went "Aaahha!", and just reloaded, repeated and disconnected at 1x warp. No problems. So, in a way I answered my own question on this forum - I would maybe not have found it if I had not started to write here. 
 

(*) Sure, this could perhaps be made simpler if the mine itself could move - that's not the topic of this post, and a lesson I may learn somewhere in 2017. 

(**) No problem other than the regular wheels that all turn in different directions, which is solved by moving my Kerbal from the seat to the lander can, and back to the seat, and playing around with the "control from here" until the wheels cooperate again. 

[Aphobius]

A few days ago I've posted a video with a "clock" that had only a second hand. Meanwhile I've improved it a little. It's not very accurate (compared to the MET time from top left of the screen), it gained around 8 minutes in 2 hours and a half, but it can be calibrated, it just takes a very long time to do it and it's kinda useless.

I've also made a topic about it HERE, where you can also find a video that is showing how it's working (although I wouldn't recommend you watching it, because of my horrible English) or if you have any questions.

[TheEpicSquared]

I got absolutely nothing done in KSP today. Instead I'm watching SpaceX's Mars talk 

[Martian Emigrant]

20 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

I got absolutely nothing done in KSP today. Instead I'm watching SpaceX's Mars talk 

I'm missing it.

Thanks.

I'm gone.

 

ME

[Guest]

Mission Kerbert 1 to Duna is progressing. The components have been successfully lifted to orbit and assembled. The first fueling mission has also been successful, and the construction crew has been replaced by the mission crew. Another fueling mission will have to follow, possibly even two. 

Jeb got a bit overexcited with landings on returning from the missions, but other than that everything is going according to plan, more or less.

Orbiter has been delivered to lander, and the two have docked.

Booster has been added to the lander and orbiter, and refueling plus crew transfer is in progress.

[CobraA1]

Finally finished my tech tree. I understand it's theoretically possible without leaving the Kerbin system, but I finished it with missions to Jool's moons. Next on my list: Rescue stranded Kerbils. Dunno how I'm going to rescue the one stranded on Eve.

I'll also experiment with ways to improve things in the future. I rather brute-forced my way through it, basically using over-engineered rockets. I want to do things like SSTO rockets and aircraft, having stations in orbit and at Minimus so I can refuel.

[Schtiebuu]

Today the Kerbals working hard EVA on the Kerbal Internation Space Station (KISS) > in Multiplayer

[Leafbaron]

This may not sound to enthralling but for me I have always been enticed by Space Planes but could never get them to work. Soooooo, I'm planning a SSTO with a dV budget high enough to go into Low Munar orbit (12km) and deploy a Lander-Rover combo, do some science and return. If it will make it to the Mun it will surely make it to Minmus. Will try and post pictures later.

 

Any Tips and Tricks would be welcome!

 

-Leafy

Edited September 27, 2016 by Leafbaron

[Crocket]

I've created a prototype Kerbin-system biome hopper, and I'd love it if somebody could take a nice jaunt around Mun and Minmus (perhaps Rald if @eddiew can get it off the ground there) and report back with changes I could make. I'm not the best at testing craft.

Here's the .craft, for anybody willing to test it.