What did you do in KSP1 today?

[DunaRocketeer]

I kicked one of my latest vehicles up to an apogee beyond Minmus, to simulate how it handles interplanetary aerobraking with a heavy payload. It did very well, and should be ready for full missions now.

[Curveball Anders]

Quads are nice.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, 2 to go) Kicked off yesterday by accepting five new contracts - 3 tourist jorbs, a Mün orbit rescue and a pressure survey up by Kerbin's north pole. After that I loaded Jeb onto Bad Idea 5 and conducted a crew survey 850 kilometers southwest of KSC, a mission that went by relatively quickly and smoothly thanks again to the Atmosphere Autopilot mod, which I'm pretty much going to plug now every chance I can get. In the wake of that mission I picked up a contract to put an outpost on the surface of Minmus and earned sufficient science to unlock labs. 

Upon Jeb's return to KSC 09, it was time for me to pay attention to the historic mission of the initial exploration of Minmus, conducted by Juluna Kerman aboard Flaming Death Trap 7. After gathering as much orbital science as possible, Juluna landed the craft in the Midlands near Minmus's southern pole, busting off half of the matchstick lander legs in the process (and busting off the second half on the next landing). She proceeded to biome hop and hit all nine of Minmus's biomes, gathering every possible stock experiment from the biomes with the exception of seismometer and gravioli readings. I did have a moment where the mission was in doubt after the lander tipped over while landing on the Slopes (this after all of the lander legs had broken off), but I was able to finagle the craft back into an upright position and the mission proceeded from there. She hit the Highlands last:

Flaming Death Trap 7, launching from Minmus Highlands.

The transfer burn back to Kerbin was also interesting - she got a good burn back but it put her periapsis at only about 4,000 meters, dangerously close to the surface. Fortunately no errant chunks of minty rock got in the way, and Juluna made it back to Kerbin after a 26 day mission, earning 5157 science points and completing the Explore Minmus contract. With the proceeds, I went nuclear (both NERVAs and PB-NUKs, along with more science instruments and a number of other high-tier parts) and upgraded the VAB to Level 3. The Explore Minmus contract was replaced immediately with the mission to Explore Duna, which I heartily accepted.

Probes Beep-Beep 7e and Beep-Beep 7j also made it to Minmus orbit while Juluna's mission was ongoing (both while she was heading back to Kerbin); neither probe interfered with Juluna's mission, and I'll be attempting to put them into their final orbital dispositions this evening if all goes according to plan.

[Corscaria]

I built and tested a 6-kerbal emergency escape vehicle. Capable of safely deorbiting 6 kerbals back to Kerbin.

Unfortunately I forgot lights and we passed the terminus into night....

The chute opened just fine, and reduced the vehicles speed below the splatter point.

Ran out of fuel trying to putter to land... Hope the recovery crew bring a boat...

All 6 test crew got promoted due to their daring dive from space OUTSIDE a module.

The crew is happy and healthy. But they were a little concerned when I told then I need to make the escape ship much smaller...

Edited November 1, 2016 by Corscaria
typo

[Martian Emigrant]

Ok.

Update.

Won't bore you with the details. Plenty of pictures at: http://imgur.com/a/qkqjA

I have built ships and have been some place but not all. So recently I built this:

In the hope of seeing what there is to see. And prove that I might be learning a few things here.

It as one seat, one ISRU and half full tanks sitting on Kerbin. Just enough delta-V to start the trip.

Stop 1. Minmus.

Stop 2. Duna.

EDIT: Forgot Ike.

Stop 3. Ike.

Stop 4. Jool. Well not an actual stop at Jool. But there it is.

Stop 5. Laythe.

Stop 6. Vall.

Stop 7. Tylo. Again not an Actual stop as I don't have the delta-v for it.

Stop 8. Pol. Out of order. Yes. I know. I didn't want to chance running out of delta-v by going to Bop first.

Stop 9. Bop.

Allan got to do all the touristy things that Kerbals do when they get here.

Such as pin-the-eyeball.

Kalamari-body-bath.

Of course there was some climbing, kicking, name carving and sampling the seafood restaurants.

Stop 10. Eeloo.

Stop 11? Probably Dres.

I don't have enough experience to predict how I will travel to the inner worlds yet. Might involve some gravity braking. Revisiting Jool and or Duna...We’ll see.

I am so pleased that things are working. Can't wait to be done so I can do it again with a two-kerbal ship that can do Tylo and Eve as well.

 

ME

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[SmashingKirby148]

Finally found the Duna Face! I had attempted several times before, but never actually found it. I knew the general area, just wasn't sure where precisely. But I found it today!

[Brownhair2]

This is what I get for trusting IR

I have no idea how to fix this, even if I use cheats. There's no way I'm transferring 38 Kerbals to a new spaceship.

Edited November 1, 2016 by Brownhair2

[SmashingKirby148]

2 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

This is what I get for trusting IR

 

Yes! I'm not the only one! I now know this is an actual bug and not my misfortune!

No, I'm not happy your ship is messed up. Pretty sad actually. But I'm just happy that I now know this is an actual bug which could most likely be fixed. I posted it already on the IR thread, so don't worry about that.

[ThatHomelessGuy]

10 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

This is what I get for trusting IR

Test
test
test.

I know sometimes you can't know until you are in the field. Shame.

[Brownhair2]

Alright, I loaded a quicksave and everything is fine. But now I have to redo a mission. Luckily it wasn't anything major. Just bringing an SSTO back to Kerbin.

[SmashingKirby148]

Just now, Brownhair2 said:

Alright, I loaded a quicksave and everything is fine. But now I have to redo a mission. Luckily it wasn't anything major. Just bringing an SSTO back to Kerbin.

Wait, what? A quicksave didn't fix it for me ._.

[Thrawn889]

Erm yeah. nothing as elaborate as Martian Emigrant's post (wow just wow)... but I played for a couple of hours today due to work.... 

1) built a science machine on wheels to trundle around the KSC to get the 100+ science so far. (more to collect)  

2) I launched my first Comm Sat into (mostly) polar orbit. (thank you to KER mod for the major assistance getting it there  ) 

http://imgur.com/a/WFbLA

3) launched a manned science mission into orbit. again i tried for a polar orbit and kinda failed... 

4) launched a not to survive probe to test the TT Radial Decoupler in a suborbital trajectory while also 'haul the Thud engine into a 100m-110m orbit. (I managed to do both with the same ship. (when i log back on tomorrow this will die on Kerbin's surface. XD

so yeah i call it productive for the level im playing at. I keep coming on here and seeing some of the designs and builds and things everyone else does and I'm like how... How do i learn to do that.... 

[Brownhair2]

4 minutes ago, SmashingKirby148 said:

Wait, what? A quicksave didn't fix it for me ._.

Yeah, didn't last long. The planes are already drifting apart again

[SmashingKirby148]

Just now, Brownhair2 said:

Yeah, didn't last long. The planes are already drifting apart again

Oh... Strange 

[TheEpicSquared]

Got 2 chapters done for my KSP Megastructures series, and played around with VSSTOs for simple crew shuttles for my space stations.

[Vanguard319]

On ‎10‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 4:09 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

This actually makes sense in context:

This horrid little thing is my overly complicated solution to returning half a dozen Kerbals and a couple of big parts from the surface of Duna. The catch is, the cockpit & Skipper are what's waiting on the surface. I'll need to bring them together with the rest of it, assemble it with KAS/KIS, then get the whole mess back to Kerbin in one piece. Well, at least the important pieces. Who needs heat shields? I'll just use those big ol' wings to aerobrake down from interplanetary speeds. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? 

Actually, initial testing from near-Münar apokee is surprisingly encouraging. Freed of all fuel, the thing actually flies quite nicely, got a little warm on re-entry but not quite toasty.

It, erm, actually lands very gently too, around 35m/s. As long as I'm not trying to make a 90 degree bank at the exact same moment.

 

Tested a crew return vehicle today inspired by the X-38. Since it's not designed to fly into orbit on it's own, I have been using Hyperedit to get it into orbit for testing. It has fewer than 30 parts, carries 6 Kerbals, and has enough monopropellant to return them safely to Kerbin from Minmus orbit. (Will need an additional stage to transfer between planets though.) So far, it has proven itself to be extremely stable during reentry, and the parachute placement is right on the center of mass, so it will remain level even if it runs out of power.

Now I just have to build a rocket capable of getting it anywhere within the Kerbin SOI, and I'll have a perfect CRV for any Space stations I build

[Martian Emigrant]

34 minutes ago, Thrawn889 said:

Erm yeah. nothing as elaborate as Martian Emigrant's post (wow just wow)... but I played for a couple of hours today due to work.... 

.......

so yeah i call it productive for the level im playing at. I keep coming on here and seeing some of the designs and builds and things everyone else does and I'm like how... How do i learn to do that.... 

Please don't compare yourself to others. Not worth it.

I have been playing this game for 6 months like it's a religion and job. I am retired. No other bother.....Not much anyway.

I still see guys drop in with a 4 part ship weighing in at 1.05 tonne do the grand tour and say "That was a fun 3 hour exercise". And I am totally amazed.

Mind you some of those guys have been around since the birth of the game.

You are doing very well.

 

ME

[Brownhair2]

Alright, finally got the whole IR thing sorted out

Also returned a Titan SSTO to Kerbin, as mentioned above. It was going to go to Titanus, but the inclination got screwed up and the Titanus window isn't for a while, so I decided to bring it back (It hadn't actually done the transfer burn yet)

I'm thinking I might send another MOTHER to Titanus. I'm gonna have to be a bit more careful with the docking, since I can't just use IR to rotate the planes the right way.

[SmashingKirby148]

Omg, I am completely out of words. I just built a working space plane. That survived getting to orbit.

I haven't tested bringing it back yet, and I'm really nervous and hope it goes smoothly. Any tips for landing in water from orbit? It's for Laythe which is why I chose the water.

[Thrawn889]

10 minutes ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Please don't compare yourself to others. Not worth it.

I have been playing this game for 6 months like it's a religion and job. I am retired. No other bother.....Not much anyway.

I still see guys drop in with a 4 part ship weighing in at 1.05 tonne do the grand tour and say "That was a fun 3 hour exercise". And I am totally amazed.

Mind you some of those guys have been around since the birth of the game.

You are doing very well.

 

ME

Thanks ME, 

 

I mean i look at it all and really wish i could do it but I know I've got to start some where. Everyone's career mode starts in the same place. One of the things that I've struggled with is deciding what 'tech' is most useful. Most of the contracts I'm being offered seem to be survey this spot on Kerbin while above or below 'X'. I've done a few of these with other plays before but i found that they got tedious.

My contract list is down to ferry 'x' number of tourists to orbit of kerbin and sub orbit. with the highest reputation, being 'Explore the Mun'. I haven't looked at it much yet, however, if i can get away with it (since my last Mun attempt left Jeb stranded in mid orbit...) I think tomorrow is going to be send a probe to the mun and try and learn how to get into a Mun orbit..

I'm starting to grasp the basics of don't use too much fuel to get to orbit of Kerbin cause that really hampers my plans for flying to Mun XD

Edited November 1, 2016 by Thrawn889
grammar and spelling errors...

[ThatHomelessGuy]

2 minutes ago, SmashingKirby148 said:

Omg, I am completely out of words. I just built a working space plane. That survived getting to orbit.

I haven't tested bringing it back yet, and I'm really nervous and hope it goes smoothly. Any tips for landing in water from orbit? It's for Laythe which is why I chose the water.

Chutes heheh Lots and lots of chutes

[Brownhair2]

1 minute ago, SmashingKirby148 said:

I haven't tested bringing it back yet, and I'm really nervous and hope it goes smoothly. Any tips for landing in water from orbit? It's for Laythe which is why I chose the water.

Landing in water isn't that much different than landing on solid ground. Taking off can be harder, depending on how much of your plane is submerged.

[Martian Emigrant]

6 minutes ago, SmashingKirby148 said:

Omg, I am completely out of words. I just built a working space plane. That survived getting to orbit.

I haven't tested bringing it back yet, and I'm really nervous and hope it goes smoothly. Any tips for landing in water from orbit? It's for Laythe which is why I chose the water.

Congrats.

Feels good doesn't it?

I still struggle with anything with wings myself.

I find that the MK! cockpits has a tendency to explode on reentry unless I keep the nose real high. But it might be something I do.

Landing? I use parachutes high up on the nose and when the ship is upright blast the engines to slow down to something below "splat-Speed".

 

ME

[SmashingKirby148]

8 minutes ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

Chutes heheh Lots and lots of chutes

Oh... Whoops xD

3 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

Landing in water isn't that much different than landing on solid ground. Taking off can be harder, depending on how much of your plane is submerged.

Yeah, taking off is different. But I imagine that there would be a base at the shore, and the plane can taxi over, maybe refuel, and then take off.

2 minutes ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Congrats.

Feels good doesn't it?

I still struggle with anything with wings myself.

I find that the MK! cockpits has a tendency to explode on reentry unless I keep the nose real high. But it might be something I do.

Landing? I use parachutes high up on the nose and when the ship is upright blast the engines to slow down to something below "splat-Speed".

 

ME

 

It does.

I've seen a lot of designs from amazing SSTO people ( @Matt Lowne and @Thrimm , those two are fantastic (and believe me, there are more)  ) that have the wings lower down instead of snap dead in the middle, does this help with reentry and do the wings have a higher heat tolerance?

[ROXunreal]

First manned Mun landing in this career. It was also a rover retrieval mission, or more precisely, retrieval of the remaining non-transmitted temp and pressure science experiments from three different biomes.

The craft was supposed to follow the Apollo-like design but falls short due to still not having unlocked the bigger pod, lander can and some other parts. The upper stage was also equipped with too little fuel and I just barely managed to get back to Kerbin.

Launch and orbit

Lander detaches and lands 19km from rover.

Rover on its way.

Rover at the landing site. Jeb removed the remaining experiment data from the rover and leaves in the ascent stage of the lander can. After a lot of complications and with the lander out of fuel, Jeb performs the last stages of the rendezvous with the command pod using RCS only, and docks.

After transferring Jeb and science data to the command pod, the pod's monopropellant tank is refilled with remaining monopropellant in the lander. The lander is then detaches and abandoned. Unlike the real Apollo missions where the lander crashed into the surface, here the lander will remain in low munar orbit.

The craft then burns for a very eccentric Kerbin orbit before running out of fuel. The tiny transfer stage for the return journey is jettisoned, but the periapsis is still above the atmosphere at over 85,000m. However since it was at that time on the apoapsis of its extreme orbit, changing the periapsis to a desired altitude was easy using RCS alone.

I decided to airbrake instead of descent on first re-entry because I feared reentering would be extremely fast and violent. It took an entire three orbits with a periapsis at 45,000m and to reduce the apoapsis from near the distance of the Mun to LKO and then on the fourth orbit I reentered. During final re-entry the ablator got completely spent and parts of the ship started getting very hot, but it then slowed down and touched down safely.

Totally not worried or anything