What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Sam!]

10 hours ago, LordCorwin said:

Nice! By the way, what mod did you use to show so spectacular background planet images????

 

Stock Visual Enhancements 

 

 

[Vermil]

Well, this isn't exactly today. I have hardly had any time to play and even less to post. So this started some days ago. But just to put up some context:

As probably none, possibly one, will remember, Vermil's Space Agency had planned a number of new missions. There was team Gamma's anomaly hunt on Mun, Alpha team's Hover Rover test and exploration on Minmus, team Beta's first manned mission to Gilly, then the first manned mission to Vall and an hopefully anomaly hunting mission to Laythe.

It got off to a bad start. Team Gamma crashed and got stranded on Mun and team Alpha performed the subsequent rescue mission. Because of this, the two first missions got scratched. But team Beta's visit to Gilly was a huge success. So now it's time for the big Jool missions. The transfer window is rapidly approaching.

Team Delta was in turn and was offered the Vall mission. But “Cerly's gang”, Cerly, Eilla and Asdra had dreamed about Laythe for years and - probably correctly - assumed that their chance to ever get to visit that far away moon with atmosphere and seas, would probably burn if they accepted Vall. Their own personal dreams took precedence over the prestige and fame of a first landing. So team Epsilon, Danvey (of Duna potato farm fame), Lealian and Lindra, got the Vall mission instead.

Since budget and resources would be exhausted anyway, it was decided to launch both Jool missions simultaneously and focus everything on these for as long as they ran.

So Dr Horst and MC Kermin (“Mission Control”, head of mission control) had some hard work ahead, getting the giant rockets ready. Both being based on the famed Kronos family.

First, the ladder system needed serious attention. This was of course in perfect order in Kronos C, but since then “subtle version-fluctuations in the Universe” had changed things. After many hours of painful tweaking, and Jebediah test climbing (as usual), the ladders were finally put in working order.

Next were the landing struts. These have recently exhibited a behavior of slipping and sliding and exploding. Much effort was spent on these, not the least because it was so awkward and time consuming to test. The mood was for long pretty pessimistic, but in the end a workable solution was found, a combination of limiting landing speeds to 2-3 m/s, stiffening springs and damping, and using girder blocks to protect the ground clearance (and thus the rocket nozzles). Dr Horst was finally smiling happily and MC Kermin released a big breath of relief.

Kronos D is a further refinement of the famous Laythe rocket. Kronos E incorporating the same refinements as D, but being modified for landing and taking off from Vall. Parachutes are removed and powerful attitude nossles are added for increased pitch control. Kronos D lander will use roughly a fourth of its chemical fuel for the landing, and three fourths for the takeoff. Kronos E, which can't use parachutes, uses half for the landing and half for the takeoff. That takes care of the differences of atmosphere and gravity. Not much other modifications are needed.

 

The big day came up and everybody could tell how pleased Dr Horst was at finally getting rid of the enormous rocket monsters from his VAB. Mission Control, otoh, was pale and in his usual Jool anxiety, only doubled up this time, worrying for his precious astronauts' safety. And doubtless, this is serious. They will be away on a horribly long trip, far, far away from any possible rescue if something should happen. Comfort is that the Kronos has made this trip three times before. And these are the two best Kronos rockets ever built.

The astronauts don't seem worried though. Cerly, Eilla and Asdra are more like euphoric. Finally, they are on their way to their big adventure.

Cerly did a great job of piloting the launch. She set a new record for the Kronos with amount of chemical fuel left and a nice circular orbit of 241 km. She followed Tandan's example (Kronos C) and flew mostly on manual, only briefly relying on SAS. This seems to be the key to both get a highly lateral trajectory and be flying 'clean' (attitude) when ejecting empty rockets.

 

Danvey, Lealian and Lindra soon followed. Danvey actually did even better - very slightly - than Cerly. But since his rocket was a special version and somewhat lighter, comparisons can't be made.

 

Both rockets were able to burn for a direct escape from Kerbin, using only chemical rockets.
This means that the Kronos finally accomplish one of it's original design goals: Launch, orbit and escape on its first set of chemical rockets. Proving that the first design was sound. Too conservative (or inexperienced) piloting was the issue, not Dr Horst's estimates.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Vermil

[katateochi]

2 hours ago, RoboRay said:

I really like the design for the landing legs on that probe.

[eddiew]

(Ed: personal first: boots on Laythe )

With a goodly portion of the lab's data processed, mission control finally gives the go ahead for descent. Thunderhawk leaves they Odyssey in its eccentric orbit and aerobrakes down on its own, saving many precious fuels. The Laythian atmosphere proves unexpectedly hostile, heating the ship almost as soon as it reaches the uppermost fringes, but with careful piloting, Jinx Kerman manages to keep temperatures under control - and avoids mentioning anything to her colleagues in back, whose main concern seems to be a lack of consumables.

Nearer the ground, the moon proves more hospitable. While the atmosphere isn't exactly conducive to respiration, it is at least good for jet engines, and at 0.8g, the landing proves easier than simulations at Kerbin. With the systems check reading green across the board, Doohan and Lily Kerman deploy surface science packages. Nimoy Kerman takes readings while the rest of the crew spread out to look for... well, anything interesting, really.

[Aragosnat]

Made 2 Kerbals passout for a contract. Found out that each Kerbal has their own tolerance to High Gees:

 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

2 hours ago, RoboRay said:

I completed my unmanned Duna surface science return mission...

I'm out of likes today apparently but that is pretty awesome. Once I get some decent antennas I am definitely using this technique.

Anyways, this actually happened last night, but I started working on a B-52 replica.

And then I realized:

Spoiler

I had made the Big Ugly Fat [Redacted]'s fuselage fatter than it is supposed to be (when scaled to 5/6ths).   Oops.

Not that the wheels won't make it look fat anyways. It would be awesome if we had procedural gears, so it wasn't always "use bogies or your landing gear will be small."

 

Edited September 30, 2016 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Mecha Pants]

I've been updating some ancient SSTO designs I used to fly, and figuring out how to make moving payloads dorsally work again.

[RX2000]

1 hour ago, Aragosnat said:

Made 2 Kerbals passout for a contract. Found out that each Kerbal has their own tolerance to High Gees:

 

Have you got the contract to make them pass out in space yet? Or just while flying in the atmosphere?

[Ultimate Steve]

18 hours ago, Dire_Squid said:

So the question is: How'd you do it? How was your craft designed? How much fuel did you consume?

 

I used most of the fuel in it. There was also two giant heat shields on it, but they are gone by the time it landed.

If you want to learn more, the entire mission (so far) is documented in the mission report in  my sig.

[JadeOfMaar]

I found a compromise between the mothership's design and sacrificing the Mk2 Pill lander to make room for this, the Xenon Koaster F with surveyor parts. F for (Near) Future, meaning a stock edition exists before this one. So I can have both lander and koaster now for the win. Here in particular I was tweaking the 6 ion engines for perfect balance/breakeven between Ec produced and Ec consumed and reassuring myself of Mun landing performance. Billy-Bobbert Kerman on point to give the good or bad reports as things happened. RCS is weak but should be quite enough for docking. And SAS is boosted enough with two of the tiny torque wheels.

 

Edited September 30, 2016 by JadeOfMaar

[Leopard]

Completed a mun ground survey mission to take Eva and surface samples at a few places without breaking rover, Bob has now returned to mun orbit on fumes, waiting an OTV to ferry the lander back to the orbital station.

also waited an age for yet another eggbox update, then the game update

[Cresilia]

3 hours ago, Mecha Pants said:

I've been updating some ancient SSTO designs I used to fly, and figuring out how to make moving payloads dorsally work again.

That thing looks satisfyingly kerbal.

[icedown]

Night Side SSTO reentry.

[RoboRay]

5 hours ago, katateochi said:

I really like the design for the landing legs on that probe.

Thanks!  It keeps them tucked mostly behind the heatshield, and also splays the feet out for a wider, more stable stance.

[DerekL1963]

7 hours ago, RoboRay said:

I completed my unmanned Duna surface science return mission.

Nice use of the new parts.

[Benji13]

11 hours ago, capi3101 said:

(1.1.3) Didn't do that terrible much in KSP last night; went ahead and launched a Gurney 7 rescue rocket to retreive Tinia Kerman from orbit - another effin' pilot...

 

10 hours ago, eddiew said:

Tbh, that's the point I start editing save files to turn rescuenauts into something I actually need. Would be nice if the game told you the traits of the kerbal in the contract details, but maybe it's wrong to be picky with SOS rescue missions   Is it just me that has a huge gender imbalance? About 80% of my rescues are female...

 

9 hours ago, capi3101 said:

I agree that it would be nice to know what kind of Kerbal you're picking up before you go and do it.

http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/12671

[Aegrim]

http://imgur.com/a/NMzar

I've done this mission a few times but newer mods are making this a lot better this time around.

 

Edited October 1, 2016 by Aegrim

[numerobis]

I've built a nice reliable tourist bus that costs $5050 to launch, takes two tourist to LKO every time. Round-trip time: about 30 minutes, in part because I set the chutes to open quite low: 1km for the little chute on the nose to get me to not die, but 600m and 400m for the two radial chutes so I don't just linger in the air forever.

On the maiden flight, I wanted to see how far I could make it glide on re-entry. It was dark. At about 2500m I chickened out and decided to throw open the chutes.

They opened fully. Even the 400m chute.

Then I took a crew report and noticed I was in the mountains...

[RX2000]

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/254841825967272947/8BF60F5A1DED1858F1D4E458ACD93BB95C0F7D99/

OMG finally landed a Kerbal on the Mun!! Good 'ole Bob got 'er done & came back to Kerbin with 366 science!

 

[Mecha Pants]

Finally got the bugs worked out by playing with tanks and fuel fill, and lifted a small dorsal payload (just over 10t of station core) to an 80km orbit, running it a little tight on fuel though.

Shortly after launch:

Station Core Deployed:

[kraden]

In recent events, I managed to build a ship which launched 19 tourists and 3 crew to land on Minmus, head out of Kerbin's SOI, return to Kerbin's SOI, land on Mun, and safely return to the surface of Kerbin.  I cut it really, really close on DV and food (actually ran out of food just three hours prior to reentry), close enough that if I use the design again, I'll modify it to have a little more of each.

I mentioned in an earlier post that my inner system probe passed by Moho and Eve:

 

Also, my Minmus base is expanding quite nicely.  The first picture is right after the base was equipped to build it's own modules.

 

A couple rocket part containers later and were in business. Oh yeah, and this thing eats up electricity something fierce.

 

The latest module included a habitat and more importantly a greenhouse.

 

The next module the base is working on is a Karbonite processing facility.  It will not only provide raw Karbonite as fuel, but it will be able to refine it into liquid fuel and oxidizer for ships and even distill it producing some much needed oxygen.  Combined with its current ability to grow food, it will be much closer to being able to launch and supply it's own ships from the surface of Minmus.  Until we learn how to grow kerbals however, it will still require kosmonauts from Kerbin itself.

[MagicFireCaster]

Made something fun today used raster prop monitor to go in orbit around minmus 

Unluckily i forgot to take screenshots so i just have the second half of my journey

Here is the album:

http://imgur.com/a/kVyNf

[Sam!]

blaaa...

 

 

[icedown]

It's great when you finally move from the clunky 2.5m to the workhorses of 3.75m

 

[DerekL1963]

Not much action on the Jool-5 front today...  busy with real life.  My log, in my sig, has been updated - and here's a couple of beauty shots;

A test to ensure that the off center CG wouldn't cause a problem - and it flew like a champ, missing the target orbit by only 175 meters.



A test of a MK3 hull based mothership just to explore the possibilities.