What did you do in KSP1 today?

[TopHeavy11]

I started setting up the infrastructure for a Constellation-style conquering of every body in the game...Including Eeloo!

2 minutes ago, loch.ness said:

Before I send the crews I'll of course need a tool for picking landing sites.  To that end I started working on my Duna rover.

Curiosity can collect core samples and use a laser to check for signs of life.  It also has a sensor for checking the atmosphere for hydrogen and plenty of power.  It drives rather well though the steering is reversed and the wheels feel a little off.  I might not be able to fix that without a complete rebuild though and I'm pretty happy with how she looks.

Next step will be setting her up with a skycrane and an atlas and then either launching at the next window or well before.  I did send along a standard relay sat before the next window with the intent of doing the same thing here.

I'm "curious" to see how that turns out!

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go) Began the latter portion of the day on Friday by dispatching the Spamcan 7 monoprop craft from the Munport space station to pick up pilot Magsan Kerman and engineer Phovie Kerman from low orbit of Mün. The craft performed admirably and returned the two rescued Kerbals to Munport, where they'll be placed on the next available transport back to Kerbin along with Kelzor and Willberry, who were previously rescued aboard the same craft. Next, VIP Raynart was loaded aboard an Auk I rescue spaceplane for a contract into LKO, conducting a mission to rescue scientist Sidbrett Kerbman. Aside from bouncing the plane on touchdown and ripping off the engines, the mission was a total success. Bouncing seems to be a perennial issue for the Auk I and I'll be looking into ways to help curtail it with a future re-design. With contracts to put ore from both Mün and Minmus into orbit of Kerbin, I designed an ore lander, which I dubbed Nostromo 7; two Nostromo craft were launched - Nostromo headed for Mün, and Lewis and Clark headed for Minmus. Ended the day on Friday with the arrival of a Bill Clinton 7a grabber probe in vicinity of Mün to conduct a junk gathering mission. It rendezvoused with the module - a spent Launch Escape rocket - and then made the burn to return to Kerbin.

Saturday was my birthday, so I didn't do much that day. An Auk III tanker spaceplane left the Kerbinport space station and returned safely to KSC 27, and then an Auk II passenger spaceplane was launched to Kerbinport with three tourists aboard bound for Minmus, docking with the station before the day was over.

Yesterday I decided to go ahead and use DPAI's ability to re-name docking ports and gave each of the available berths at Kerbinport a unique name, anticipating issues with getting two planes docked at the station at the same time. An Auk III was sent up to finish refueling the ferry craft Next Objective docked at the station; docking was a success though I am glad I relabeled the ports first. Nostromo arrived at Mün and landed at the Piper Alpha refinery site, where it was promptly refueled and loaded with the required amount of fresh ore. A Bill Clinton 7a craft sent to retreive Willberry's craft from Mün returned to Kerbin successfully, though it flipped upon deployment of the airbag and I was briefly concerned that either the Claw would fail or the module would burn up in atmosphere. 

This morning I had an overnight shift and wound up playing the game for about three and a half hours; spent the rest of the time helping out a problem she was having with an Excel spreadsheet misbehaving. The Bill Clinton 7a probe carrying the Launch Escape Vehicle arrived back at Kerbin and was retrieved successfully, coming down in between the 10 and 15-kilometer marker buoys for KSC 27. Having it arrive so close to KSC was completely unintentional, but I was delighted nonetheless. I picked up a four-Kerbal tourist contract afterwards; since those Kerbals were all headed to Minmus, I sent down the Auk II docked at Kerbinport and then sent up an identical craft with the four tourists aboard, arriving and docking successfully with the space station. Nostromo returned to Kerbin's orbit and fulfilled its contract, ultimately arriving and docking successfully at Kerbinport on vapors; a junk-and-Kerbal mission to Minmus was picked up in the wake its return and and another Bill Clinton 7a was launched to conduct that mission. Finally, the ferry Big Stink returned to Kerbin, but I realized too late that the craft was on a trajectory that would take it too deep into Kerbin's atmosphere - an emergency landing was affected, with the drive section cast off and almost promptly exploding at about 40,000 kilometers above the surface. Crew and passengers of Big Stink were retrieved safely, including Val, Bill, Jeb, pilot Buremy and scientist Frovey, the last of which was the subject of a Minmus rescue contract. Big Stink is the second Superfortress 7 craft lost to date (after Necessary Evil) and returns my space ferry fleet to just two craft - Strange Cargo and Next Objective, both of which are docked at Kerbinport. I was thinking about sending Big Stink to Duna when the time came, so now I'll either need to launch a new Superfortress or just send one of the other two extant craft.  

[Tyko]

Like @katateochi I was also moving big rocks around. Moving Class E rocks is takes a lot of effort. Originally I was sending out a nuclear tug loaded with fuel to push the rock into a stable orbit, then would send up mining rigs to harvest the sweet LF/OX. This meant I had to launch fully fueled tugs which weighed in at over 300 metric tons. My new generation of tugs has mining capabilities built right in. I launched them with just enough fuel to get to their first asteroid. They then attach and create the fuel they need to wrangle the rock into orbit.

The asteroid below massed 4 kilo-tons - the biggest thing I've moved yet. my longest burn (~450DV) was 53 minutes!

The engine is from PorkJet's Atomic Age pack - not updated since 1.0.5, but it still works just fine 

Question for the group: is there a good explanation somewhere of the math behind the drilling/ISRU  asteroid > ore > fuel conversion rates?

Edited December 12, 2016 by Tyko

[HalcyonSon]

12 hours ago, Mycroft said:

I finished the first layer of a polar comms network with 34 relays scattered over the planet. Gonna build the next layer up in kerbistationary orbit with about 17 more satellites scattered around the Kerbin system.

Hmm... I read early on about the requirements for a proper KEO communication constellation, but I haven't yet found the need for it (I have all the ground bases turned on though).  I've pulled enough "place a satellite" contracts in various orbits that I think my comm net would be pretty strong if I shut off ground bases now.  Every contract calls for an antenna, but I've gone several steps beyond that.  Each simple contract satellite has four C-16s, four C-16-S, and four HG-5s.  I've found this setup to pack neatly on/around an Okto and a stack of Z-200s and OX-STATs.  Now I have nearly a dozen communication satellites around Kerbin, two or three each around Mun and Minmus, and one on the very outer edge of the Kerbin system - all at zero cost to my space program.

[HalcyonSon]

Theobles' rescue from Mun has proven much more of a challenge than originally thought.  Since his crash site is near the south pole, neither the first or the second attempt at a rescue had sufficient dV remaining to return Theobles and his capsule to Kerbin.  Additionally, neither on its own had sufficient fuel to bring itself and the capsule to Mun orbit.  A bit of creativity, and a lot of simulations, brought out a partial solution.  Thanks to the legendary flexibilty of the Klaw, the second mission (~700 dV remaining without payload) was able to grab the first (~500 dV remaining without payload) while the first held Theobles in his capsule so that he couldn't run amok on Mun.  The resulting abomination launched surprisingly well (thanks to the combined gyroscopic stability of four 1.25 m Reaction Wheels and the capsule).  The second mission was staged off and allowed to impact the Munar surface at nearly orbital velocity.  The first mission maintained control of Theobles and his capsule, and continued on to a ~ 20 km Munar orbit.  A third mission was dispatched, minus a reaction wheel and any unnecessary landing equipment, to rendezvous in orbit and complete a Kerbin return burn.

...I also made things more difficult on myself than necessary... The abomination launched due east out of habit from Kerbin launches... Didn't realize it until I had completed maneuvers on several other satellites... Should have launched due north.  Third rescue mission would have required MUCH less dV if it didn't have to make a 78 degree inclination change.  So the original third rescue mission became a pre-positioned Munar Klaw Return, and a new third mission was launched with more tweaks to gain further dV.

In other news, Kerbals are terrible at designing and flying float planes.  Jeb constantly flips the Kerbjet LD2 Sea on landing, and all attempts to right it for takeoff fail miserably.  Val has fallen into the habit of destroying the landing gear on the Kerbjet LD2 in each of its variations (base, Sea, and Sci).  The Sea variation results in a unique sprawl of pontoons and wheels bobbing in the aircraft's landing wake in the KSC harbor.  The original mission spec requiring a float plane was found to be incorrect...  Val believed that a stripped-down and streamlined version of the Sci variation would have sufficient speed and range to avoid the need for a sea landing.  She was correct, and managed to complete the needed research over the southern polar sea and return before her presence was required back at the KSC to advise on a technical point for a long planned satellite maneuver.

Edited December 12, 2016 by HalcyonSon
Additional thoughts

[Tyko]

On 12/8/2016 at 7:05 PM, Odonian said:

These are amazing Which mod provides those lit domes and the half domes seen on the further tower?

[XB-70A]

Got a day off. The morning was dedicated to medical exams but once in the barrel (and while it's normally forbidden to think) I noticed that I never made any work on a stock replica of my favorite launcher... Zenit!

Of course with her limited successful rate a lot of people denigrate and laugh at her for years now, but to me she got this thing that makes you turning crazy about. That powerful RD-171 is just delicious to listen at each time (even if the last is nearly two years old now).

 

So the problem was how to replicate just a bit the "small" RD-171 nozzles and keep the slim body without using the hideous X200 familly and their "roll of fat" while being totally stock.

Of course this isn't a good replica as my computer can't handle any craft with more than 200 parts in the hangars but the objective was just to get on Zenit-like launcher available.

As a mark of inferiority she's named Dawn instead of Zenit.

The payload is a simple relay sat' with a medium ore tank to raise its mass to 5.3 tons. Nothing complex and absolutely ugly.

 

Then comes a Block DM-SLB-like third stage :

By itself it got around 3 km/s of dV available. A Terrier and two Ants are here to imitate the RD-58M.

 

The second stage got a Skipper and four Twitch for the RD-120 and RD-8 respectively. Countrary to what can be seen here, the fairing will be jettisoned not to long after this stage ignition. And as there was no other way to keep a white body for the whole launcher she is totally made of FL-T800 tanks joined inside the fairing...

 

Then the time has come to complete the work :

Here it can be seen that to have enough punch during the launch the first stage engine is made of 8 Reliant and 4 Swivel coupled together. About 20 fuel tanks are inside the fairing to feed them up...

And it was not long before the inaugural launch :

 

To not invade the topic the rest of the flight is in the spoiler window :

 

Spoiler

 

The lift-off is smooth and acceleration correct for this 164 tons babydoll. I was firstly worried about a CoM too much forward but the Swivel made their job perfectly and the whole vehicle stayed stable all along the climb.

 

Second stage ignition around an altitude of 25 km with around 2450 m/s available.

Slow fairing jettisoning at 65 km (I wasn't looking at the altimeter at this time...)

And keep on accelerating to place the Apogee at 50 000 km.

 

Once the second stage job done it still had some fuel onboard. So the whole launcher could probably be used to swing away some interplanetary light probs.

Uh oh... that meeting with Minmus was not on the initial plans... whatever that just 2520 km more than what was expected. And a new orbit inclination. And more fuel to be burned. And more time.

Passing by green dot.

Then finally five days later :

The last stage lights up.

 

After a burn of about 30 seconds the whole system still have plenty of ressources available. But as this satellite's sole objective was to confim the possibilities of Dawn-3SLB there was no reasons to keep them together anymore.

Bye ugly 3rd stage.

 

 

 

 

 

Also if you like thunderous melody have a look at this launch (actually the last of a Zenit to this day) :

https://youtu.be/De4rdybEt4Y?t=23s

And watch for your ears and speaker at 0:25!

Edited December 12, 2016 by XB-70A

[dangerhamster]

With Jeb showboating (and crashing a lot) in the airships Val hatched a cunning plan to regain control of the program.......

One mug of Belgianmemorylossitsgotamonkonthebottlemustbegood later Jeb woke to find himself strapped down and landing in the first component of the projected Minmus industrial facility. Val's cunning plan then removed the go modules leaving Jeb stranded with a couple of prototype rovers and a pair of half crazed engineers.

The next arrival was a pair of Deliverance class cargo transports carrying a miner and a metal recycling unit. The engineers picked up the new arrivals and pausing briefly to feed the two Deliverance to the Recycler jockeyed themselves into position and hooked up to the base core.

The recycled scrap allowed them to build the first addition to the base, a storage tank for metal with built in ore-metal converter.

Jeb is reported to be "mildly miffed" with his new role of hammering stakes in whilst Val has appropriated the training program as well as airship testing duties.

 

 

[Odonian]

2 hours ago, Tyko said:

These are amazing Which mod provides those lit domes and the half domes seen on the further tower?

The station uses the Mk3 Cupola from InsanityAerospace's Mk3 Expansion, the Observation Cupola from Nertea's Station Parts Expansion, and the Planetary Cupola from Nils277's Planetary Base Systems. Glad you like the design!

[katateochi]

4 hours ago, Tyko said:

Looks great! Is that station joined to both asteroids? I wasn't even sure that was possible without having it self destruct

Yes both asteroids are connected. I've also found this is a recipe for explosions, but I've found a few tricks to make it work. Not having more than one active SAS module helps but isn't enough. Now with autostruts it can be made much better by autostrutting modules docked to the asteroids but also autostrutting the smaller asteroids to the larger one. My station will still rip itself to bits if you approach it from outside the physics range, but if you switch to it directly (ie from tracking station or in map mode) then it's ok.

 

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

Like @katateochi I was also moving big rocks around. Moving Class E rocks is takes a lot of effort. Originally I was sending out a nuclear tug loaded with fuel to push the rock into a stable orbit, then would send up mining rigs to harvest the sweet LF/OX. This meant I had to launch fully fueled tugs which weighed in at over 300 metric tons. My new generation of tugs has mining capabilities built right in. I launched them with just enough fuel to get to their first asteroid. They then attach and create the fuel they need to wrangle the rock into orbit.

Self sustaining astro-tugs are the way to go! And then they don't have to be quite so big either. I've got a couple that hang out in a high orbit to catch and redirect asteroids (and perform all plane change maneuvers at high elliptical orbits for efficiency). I've also got an insanely high TWR tug which I use to perform LKO maneuvers with the really big ones cos I got bored of the long burns (TWR is high enough that if it has crew (and no asteroid) they'll all get knocked out when it throttles up to full).

[Bill2462]

Today I was testing my first KSP mod.  I killed 3 Kerbals ( Bill Kerman survived !)  in attempt to land on reworked Duna surface and crashed one lander in attempt to explore Ikarus.

Bill Kerman survived crash landing on Duna and now he is exploring grand canyon and waiting for a rescue mission. 

Areobreaking above Duna Grand Canyon (At last 40 seconds before crash landing). 

My probe is attempting to land on Ikarus. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Bill2462

[David104]

I got the station/base building fever (well, and contracts) at the moment...

Was testing my new Dunabase and got a nice eclipse ......

.....finally put a new station in Minmus orbit as my old one disappeared for some reason..:D .....

....landed my new mining base on Ike´s poles...

and finally, built a new station (or half of it as I´m planning to basically double the whole thing) for Jool orbit. It was a good day..:D

[JadeOfMaar]

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

These are amazing Which mod provides those lit domes and the half domes seen on the further tower?

@Tyko Two mods actually: Station Parts Expansion and Mk3 Expansion.

[DarkOwl57]

Breaking news from the KSC. Grengous Kerman is on the scene.

4 hours ago, HalcyonSon said:

Theobles' rescue from Mun has proven much more of a challenge than originally thought.  Since his crash site is near the south pole, neither the first or the second attempt at a rescue had sufficient dV remaining to return Theobles and his capsule to Kerbin.  Additionally, neither on its own had sufficient fuel to bring itself and the capsule to Mun orbit.  A bit of creativity, and a lot of simulations, brought out a partial solution.  Thanks to the legendary flexibilty of the Klaw, the second mission (~700 dV remaining without payload) was able to grab the first (~500 dV remaining without payload) while the first held Theobles in his capsule so that he couldn't run amok on Mun.  The resulting abomination launched surprisingly well (thanks to the combined gyroscopic stability of four 1.25 m Reaction Wheels and the capsule).  The second mission was staged off and allowed to impact the Munar surface at nearly orbital velocity.  The first mission maintained control of Theobles and his capsule, and continued on to a ~ 20 km Munar orbit.  A third mission was dispatched, minus a reaction wheel and any unnecessary landing equipment, to rendezvous in orbit and complete a Kerbin return burn.

...I also made things more difficult on myself than necessary... The abomination launched due east out of habit from Kerbin launches... Didn't realize it until I had completed maneuvers on several other satellites... Should have launched due north.  Third rescue mission would have required MUCH less dV if it didn't have to make a 78 degree inclination change.  So the original third rescue mission became a pre-positioned Munar Klaw Return, and a new third mission was launched with more tweaks to gain further dV.

In other news, Kerbals are terrible at designing and flying float planes.  Jeb constantly flips the Kerbjet LD2 Sea on landing, and all attempts to right it for takeoff fail miserably.  Val has fallen into the habit of destroying the landing gear on the Kerbjet LD2 in each of its variations (base, Sea, and Sci).  The Sea variation results in a unique sprawl of pontoons and wheels bobbing in the aircraft's landing wake in the KSC harbor.  The original mission spec requiring a float plane was found to be incorrect...  Val believed that a stripped-down and streamlined version of the Sci variation would have sufficient speed and range to avoid the need for a sea landing.  She was correct, and managed to complete the needed research over the southern polar sea and return before her presence was required back at the KSC to advise on a technical point for a long planned satellite maneuver.

More on this developing story after these commercial messages.

[katateochi]

1 hour ago, Bill2462 said:

Today I was testing my first KSP mod.  I killed 3 Kerbals ( Bill Kerman survived !)  in attempt to land on reworked Duna surface.....

Duna looks really nice, which mod is that?

[Triop]

Trying new stuff.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Triop

[Halfdan]

testing my new long range Buran

 

 

getting it to mun orbit is a piece of cake, perhaps even minmus is an option

[Bill2462]

 

21 minutes ago, katateochi said:

Duna looks really nice, which mod is that?

I relased this mod yesterday.

Check  forum thread for more details

 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Bill2462

[HalcyonSon]

49 minutes ago, Triop said:

Trying new stuff.

What wheels are those?  All I have right now is the POS lightweight airplane wheels and the first rover wheels.

[Triop]

3 minutes ago, HalcyonSon said:

What wheels are those?  All I have right now is the POS lightweight airplane wheels and the first rover wheels.

It's just stock, sandbox.

Are you in career mode?

[HalcyonSon]

2 minutes ago, Triop said:

It's just stock, sandbox.

Are you in career mode?

That's right... In the early stages of Mun landings, so I haven't gone Science farming yet.

[Srpadget]

15 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Tell me how to trigger that.

I got a mod that brings in USS Enterprise, full-sized. As a dependency for another mod.

And I'm really averse to use of the gravity hack. This would be PERFECT!

It's an occasional/intermittent side effect of the Stock Visual Enhancements mod.  I believe it's actually caused by Scatterer, which SVE uses.

Sadly for you, I don't THINK it ever happens at launch.  I've only ever seen it in the KSC "menu" scene, and loading a vessel appears to fix it..  (Also, last night I think I saw an instance of the ocean level vastly LOWER than normal; but it was night in-scene and I couldn't see very well, so I'm not sure.)

[fourfa]

Keeping with my current career theme of realistic(ish) missions, no Kerbaly asparagus patches or slapped-together wobblefests. Everything has to be deployed from a fairing or a payload bay:

Orbital assembly of my big new space station:

The core/power section and the spoke modules took 3 launches of the O.R.C.A. career 50T cargo SSTO.

One more launch for the first ring habitation section to see if (despite much simulation) if it would kraken-shake itself apart.  Double-docked at each end, everything looks good and stable!

However with five launches needed for the rest of the main assembly, we opted for the heavy lift, recoverable-core lifter instead to do it all in one go.  Needed four of the biggest stock SRBs to get moving.

Payload's arrived

A few hours assembly work later, we've got core, spokes, ring, comm module, and drive/utility modules in place.  A bunch of drive modules like this will push crew and cargo pods back and forth to the moons.  Next phase will be giant fuel modules from the Minmus mining operation that will dwarf the station.

(full album http://imgur.com/a/5FgTZ)

Edited December 13, 2016 by fourfa

[HalcyonSon]

25 minutes ago, fourfa said:

Keeping

However with five launches needed for the rest of the main assembly, we opted for the heavy lift, recoverable-core lifter instead to do it all in one go.  Needed four of the biggest stock SRBs to get moving.

A few hours assembly work later, we've got core, spokes, ring, comm module, and drive/utility modules in place.  A bunch of drive modules like this will push crew and cargo pods back and forth to the moons.  Next phase will be giant fuel modules from the Minmus mining operation that will dwarf the station.

(full album http://imgur.com/a/5FgTZ)

Love the launch rig!  Took me a bit to realize that it wasn't intended as one module on the finished station.

[Firemetal]

That Zenit looks awesome, @XB-70A!

Just now, I completed a round trip to Eve and back. I can now say that I, for one, have done a near sea level return from Eve, (432m from sea level) and for two, I have gone to, planted a flag and returned from every landable body in KSP. Mission report coming soon.  

Fire