What did you do in KSP1 today?

[CatastrophicFailure]

I launched this into space. Cost a bundle. 'Sposed to go to Duna. Trouble is, it was only supposed to be a test, and wasn't quite ready for prime time. Then I switched to another vessel, now I can't revert. So I'm stuck with it. And it's pretty much useless as it is. Sigh. 

[flatbear]

10 hours ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

From a garden center. It's used in fertilizers. Go into a garden center and tell them you need potassium nitrate or a fertilizer with High Potassium nitrate content. They will take care of you.

Garden center = anywhere that sells gardening / farming supplies.

I don't wanna end up on a fbi watchlist

[The Aziz]

I saw a blood moon

[ROXunreal]

Sent three of these inexpensive satellites to 1M km Kerbin orbit and established a primitive comm network in order to be able to land probes on the Mun and Minmus before manned flight. Coverage won't be 100% as the satellites run out of power when eclipsed, and there will only be one relay satellite at the Mun and Minmus, but that's where the fun is, having to take signal windows into account I'll make a proper relay 100% coverage network a bit later in my career when I research better batteries, this network will also help putting the proper relay satellites into orbit.

Now I have to find some contracts that tell me to send probes to the Mun and Minmus, if anyone knows of a mod like that please let me know.

[septemberWaves]

I created a new crew transport vehicle (pictured below) and was going to create a new series of launch vehicles based on the Raven I 320 I used for the crew transport. But I discovered that somewhere in my mods list is a bug that makes it impossible to fly anything past about 400m/s without it flipping uncontrollably. In testing I've found that this bug also occurs on celestial bodies without an atmosphere, so do not be misled into thinking it's down to bad piloting or bad vehicle design; I'm experienced enough to know that this spacecraft should fly perfectly. I don't know why it's a 400m/s threshold that is impassable, but I suspect it is the development version of Kerbal Joint Reinforcement that's causing it, since I was able to launch spacecraft successfully before installing that.

Whilst I'm here though I might as well talk about the Raven series of launch vehicles, since that's what I was intending to design today. There will be 3 variants, all 2.5m diameter, for differing fuel tank lengths: the Raven I, Raven II, and Raven IV, which will double the fuel tank length for each increment.

The numbers that follow the name have various meanings:

The first number is the number of first stage engines. The Raven I can have either 2 or 3 first stage engines, the Raven II will have between 3 and 5 first stage engines, and the Raven IV will have between 4 and 7. Each will use more powerful engine variants to account for the increased mass.

The second number refers to the number of added SRBs. Again, the SRBs used will be more powerful for each variant. The Raven I and II can both have 0, 2, or 4 SRBs. The Raven IV can have 0, 2, 4, or 6 SRBs, though 6 can only be used with the 7-engine core.

The third number is the number of upper stage engines. A 0 means that there is no Raven-specific upper stage, a 1 or a 2 are for a standard R1 upper stage (for taking heavier payloads to orbit), and a 3 or 4 will be a 3.75m diameter R4 Mun/Minmus (or in some cases Eve or Duna) transfer stage (which can only be launched on a Raven IV). Vehicles with a Raven-specific upper stage will usually be 3-stage launchers.

There will also be a Raven V, which will consist of a Raven IV core and two Raven II cores. This will not have an option for SRBs, will use the 5-engine variants of each core, and will use an R5 heavy upper stage. It will probably mainly be used for launching interplanetary propulsion modules.

Exact payload ranges are not calculated, I will simply use different stages for different payload masses. I do know that the complete Raven series (in conjunction with various non-Raven-specific upper stages that I have yet to develop) will have a wide range of potential payloads and will be my main launch vehicles for most of my gameplay in 1.2.

Edited October 28, 2016 by eloquentJane

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, 2 to go) Yesterday I decided to see if B9 Procedural Wings was working with 1.1.3 so I could use my FAR formulas to make a decent surveyor plane, so I installed it, fired up my laptop save and tried it out. Wasn't working. Undeterred, I decided to put together a plane with stock parts that kinda matched my formulas - the result was the Bad Idea 5, a dual Panther-powered cranked arrow and tail design. Took it out to do a pair of high-altitude surveying contracts relatively close to KSC. Plane actually performed admirably - I was able to hit all eight waypoints and return safely to KSC 09, and not once did I fear I'd have to use the ejection system I'd designed into the plane. Hairiest part of the trek was the landing - plane came in a little too hot and bounced, but I smoothed it out and brought her down intact, with Jeb none the worse for wear.

After that I found the version of B9 that I was supposed to be using and installed it - fired right up and works like a charm. So there is that...

Later that evening I launched and put the Beep-Beep 7h probe in keosynchronous orbit for contract, then took out the Bad Idea 5 again for a lower-altitude surveying contract about 500 clicks north-northeast of KSC. I have to say that whoever created the Atmosphere Autopilot mod is unquestionably awesome (like, I'm freakin' Wayne and Garth over here saying 'We're not worthy! We're not worthy!'). Punched in a waypoint near the contract area, set the flight level at 12,500 m, and punched up the physics warp to 3x with the plane going Mach 2.13 the entire way there. And back. Mod takes a lot of the tedium out of flying, and I was able to finish the contract within half-an-hour as a result. Landing was - once again - the tricky bit, but I once again successfully brought the mission to a completion with the craft intact.

You know, when you don't have to focus on keeping the plane from falling out of the sky and have a moment to look around, Kerbin's a pretty nice looking planet...

The Bad Idea 5 surveyor plane.

Finished out my night with a quick decoupler parts test on the Launchpad. Picked up a second Kerbin orbital rescue mission and a tourist mission, this one including a Mün landing. Also got a mission to adjust the position of one of my satellites in orbit; the one in question still has over 2000 m/s of delta-V available, so I'm confident of success there. Went ahead and upgraded the Astronaut Complex to full before calling it a night.

I think tonight I might try to pull off a double rescue. Why not...

Edited October 28, 2016 by capi3101
Added some screenies

[kraden]

1 hour ago, ROXunreal said:

Now I have to find some contracts that tell me to send probes to the Mun and Minmus, if anyone knows of a mod like that please let me know.

If you're still on 1.1.3, you could try this:

 

[SkyHook]

11 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I launched this into space. Cost a bundle. 'Sposed to go to Duna. Trouble is, it was only supposed to be a test, and wasn't quite ready for prime time. Then I switched to another vessel, now I can't revert. So I'm stuck with it. And it's pretty much useless as it is. Sigh. 

Might I recommend a separate sandbox save? I develop all my craft there because I can cheat to orbit, etc. without worrying about my persistence file, having to revert, etc. Also, I do not have to worry about career mode restrictions, etc.

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, ROXunreal said:

Now I have to find some contracts that tell me to send probes to the Mun and Minmus, if anyone knows of a mod like that please let me know.

The standard contracts system should do that.

1 hour ago, SkyHook said:

Might I recommend a separate sandbox save? I develop all my craft there because I can cheat to orbit, etc. without worrying about my persistence file, having to revert, etc. Also, I do not have to worry about career mode restrictions, etc.

^^  This is my standard practice too.

[percyPrune]

Now that RoverDude's Orion mod is working in 1.2 I have started pushing the limits of my potato PC by building bigger ships.

Previously, in 1.05, the largest I managed were the Nuclear Space Explorer "Lazarus" (resting in LKO with refuelling probe.)::

and the lightweight N.S.E. "Guy Fliegelman", designed as pusher for the experimental Eve ascent vehicle:

Both reduced KSP to a slideshow whenever I approached them with another ship.

However, thanks to stable 1.2x64bit and Kerbal Joint Reinforcement I am playing around with a new interplanetary tourist cruiser, The N.S.E "Gwen De Marco":

As well as the solar panels and rads, the outrigger pods contain the RTG aux. power supply, battery bays and vernier maneuvering engines (LV-T45s). The main body of the ship has luxury accommodation for 32 tourists + crew, lander fuel and 3 large cargo bays so I'm currently using it to distribute relay satellites, which is a bit like using a steamroller to shell peas, but it 'aint half fun!

Happy flying,

pP

Edited October 28, 2016 by percyPrune
Fiddling with pic size!

[ROXunreal]

1 hour ago, DerekL1963 said:

The standard contracts system should do that.

Nope, it never asked me to do anything with probes. I'm at the point where I orbited the Mun manned, didn't land yet. I want to do things with probes first, but it's ok I found some mods that do it.

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, SkyHook said:

Might I recommend a separate sandbox save? I develop all my craft there because I can cheat to orbit, etc. without worrying about my persistence file, having to revert, etc. Also, I do not have to worry about career mode restrictions, etc.

Oh, i don't take this save nearly seriously enough to worry about that.  I'm just a bit used to Kerbal Construction Time and forgot you loose revert ability when you map-switch. User derp. 

 

hmm, maybe I could use it for a long distance rescue or something...

[Red Shirt]

Jeb's latest trip to Mun left him wondering if KSC was on a tight budget. The ship lacked batteries, solar panels, RCS, ladders, and landing gear. While the higher ups look for other items to cut, their attention turns to the chute - Is it really necessary? Jeb realizing he doesn't have enough fuel for the return trip concedes it was kind of pointless on this trip. He is happy to find there are still plenty of snacks on board.

It is interesting to note the same ship with landing gear added easily made the full round trip to Minmus. Jeb landed safely with rocket assist somewhere in a southern hemisphere valley surrounded by mountains. 

[Martian Emigrant]

good day all Kerbanites.

 

On 2016-10-27 at 2:20 PM, eddiew said:

The wing placement worries me. You have no tanks forward of them so your CoM will run behind your CoL as fuel drains. Maybe move the wings to the rear  Also I feel like you have excess rapiers... they're deadweight once pass 25km on Kerbin... less may be more.

Following some recommendation from @eddiew

I had reason for every decision I made and objections for everyone of the comments but I redesigned anyway.

This the latest and bestest version yet:

http://imgur.com/a/p2fCg

I can't go leaner than that.  Well hardly....a thought just popped in.....But as of now it has just enough Oompf to get to orbit with minimal delta-V to Minmus. The wings are empty. Tankerage for later. If I add anything to it. Anything at all it just can't get to orbit.

I also gave up on having a pilot on board. It as to be an Engineer.

Still need some testing around Kerbin. But in my explorations I discovered a few things.

Such things as:

What do you do when your one-Kerbal-ship land where there is no resources?

Rove somewhere else of course.

I was told recently that a lander with wheels is ugly....Works for me.

I discovered that you can sample and mine the soil while moving. Up to 10 m/s.

What do you do when you encounter a sharp decline of the terrain?

Turn around and use the main engine of course.

What can you do when going down hill on Duna in your Roving-One-or-Two-Kerbal-Ship to control speed without wiping-out?

Use the chutes of course.

Anyway. Lots of fun when things start working out.

Still a few avenues to check out for removing weight while still having enough delta-V and make sure I can re-enter Kerbins atmosphere safely. Then....Soon I hope....Do the Grand tour....Well maybe not Duna I mean Eve.........Or Tylo........We’ll see.

Fingers are crossed. All four of them....No wait five.

 

ME

Edited October 28, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[SkyHook]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Oh, i don't take this save nearly seriously enough to worry about that.  I'm just a bit used to Kerbal Construction Time and forgot you loose revert ability when you map-switch. User derp. 

 

hmm, maybe I could use it for a long distance rescue or something...

Well just a tip for when you get srs bsns

[Clipperride]

I started a new Science Mode game when 1.2 was released and, when I realised it's been a long time since I did any driving on the Mun, I decided it was time to give it another go.

Mission Report - Mun Rover Lab.

With a design based on the mobile processing lab, construction and testing was completed in record time. As you can see, the CoM was shifted downwards as far as practical, although still much higher than the design team would have wanted

Spoiler

The offset CoM also gave the launch vechile design team some pause for thought.  Mounted centrally, the rover would make the rocket hard to handle.  So, a docking port was carefully offset, to serve as an attachment point.  With time limited for this program, only one test was scheduled and was used to check the Rover alignment.

Spoiler

Thanks to the wonders of "auto strut", placing the Rover into the fairing was easy. Previous versions often needed a complex arrangement of separators, girders and struts to keep things in place.  This kept the launch vechile to a fairly reasonable size.  

During a previous mission to the Mun Lowlands, a large flat plane had been discovered and flagged (literally!) for a future base of some sort.

Spoiler

After refuelling the second stage in LKO, it was off to the Mun. By sheer blind luck Due to the brilliant mathematical minds at mission control, on entering the Mun SOI, the initial ground track took us almost directly over the landing site.  Rather than go into orbit first, the decision was made to come straight in to land.

Spoiler

The new landing platform worked reasonably well, although the control was somewhat "slushy" and "mushy" which contributed to a short landing, some 5½km from the the flag.

The tension was high in KSC as the deployment system could not be tested on Kerbin due to the higher gravity.  It was also suggested (somewhat late) that an engineer would have made a good crew member in case the wheels failed when it fell over transition to a horizontal axis

Spoiler

Three landing legs, on one side of the landing platform retracted...

Spoiler

Two sepratrons (available from our Sponsor "Jebs Scrapyard") fired, tipping the whole thing over

Spoiler

The wheels held, so it was time to undock and drive the 5.4km to the prime landing site.

Spoiler

The spent stage will, no doubt, turn into a future tourist attraction, with souvenir shops and a Jebs Outlet Mall.

Spoiler

Finally the crew landed in a desperate craft with snacks and medals all round as they touched down a mere 123m from the Rover and flag.

Now it's time for a drive.............

Edited October 28, 2016 by Clipperride
Corrections

[septemberWaves]

2 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

I was told recently that a lander with wheels is ugly....Works for me.

If you're referring to my comment the other day, I think you may have slightly misread it. I did specify vertical landers; I was thinking of the sort that tend to resemble the Apollo LEM in design. Such vehicles do tend to look rather strange when you stick aircraft wheels on them. By contrast, a plane like yours would look incredibly unusual with fixed landing gear.

[Jarin]

Pushing the envelope. Yes, of course it's Jeb flying.

[septemberWaves]

I uninstalled KJR (which was the cause of the flipping bug it seems) and was able to complete the design of the Mercury CT-1A and Mercury CT-1B (CT stands for Crew Transport). Both are transports for 2 kerbals and are capable of a Munar flyby with the standard Raven II 300 launch vehicle, and the 1B variant carries some science equipment.

A Mercury CT-1B on a Raven II 300 rocket:

A Mercury CT-1A in Kerbin orbit:

Two Mercury CTs (a 1A variant and a 1B variant) docked together in Kerbin orbit:

Tomorrow I will be busy, but on Sunday I will hopefully be able to finish designing the Raven launch vehicles. I've also decided to rename the planned upper stages; the R1 is a single-engine stage, the R2 is a 2-engine stage with twice the fuel capacity, the R3 and R4 are 3.75m stages with the corresponding number of engines and incremented fuel capacity, both intended mainly for use as transfer stages. The R5 will be a special case; as well as being able to be used as a simple upper stage, it will have the option to be used as a propulsion module for early interplanetary vehicles. I may also make an R6 variant, but by that point I suspect I will be nearing the limit of the potential of the Raven launch vehicles, and be ready to switch to a 3.75m core for larger payloads.

Additionally, I've decided to skip small-payload rockets entirely for a while. Instead, there will be a couple of cargo variants of the Mercury transports, which will be able to deploy small probes and communications satellites. Later I may use small spaceplanes for that purpose, since Modular Rocket Systems adds a very convenient 1.25m cargo bay.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

...good stuff...

Are you running 1.2? From what I've seen, the autostruts seem to have eliminated the need for KJR in the update. Even big stringy things fly solid as rocks. And fall like them too, but that's usually my fault.

 

[RoboRay]

I finalized designs of the launch vehicle and delivery vehicle for my Plane in a Can™ system...

 

[septemberWaves]

4 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Are you running 1.2? From what I've seen, the autostruts seem to have eliminated the need for KJR in the update. Even big stringy things fly solid as rocks. And fall like them too, but that's usually my fault.

 

They do to some extent, but KJR still helps out. Or at least it would, if it didn't prevent my spacecraft from accelerating beyond 400m/s (which I suspect is due to some unusual mod interaction rather than the mod itself, but I don't know).

[septemberWaves]

So today (it currently being 51 minutes past midnight as I'm typing this) I made an official thread for sharing my new line of space exploration vehicles. There's not much there yet, but it will be updated with (hopefully) reasonably good frequency as I progress with my overhaul of all of my space exploration systems.

[Wahgineer]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Are you running 1.2? From what I've seen, the autostruts seem to have eliminated the need for KJR in the update. Even big stringy things fly solid as rocks. And fall like them too, but that's usually my fault.

 

True, but KJR then becomes a quality-of-life thing: it removes the tediousness of auotstrutting/rigid attaching the rocket.

[JadeOfMaar]

The point of KJR is also to ease the trouble of things hopping and dropping when they spawn --or otherwise violently responding to physics™.