What did you do in KSP1 today?

[HalcyonSon]

4 hours ago, Red Shirt said:

Thanks to @Martian Emigrant for mounting ideas, I added a rover to my Apollo type mission lander, Hangs off the side of the landing stage via a stack decoupler. Easily uprighted once staged.. 

While I miss the 40 m/s I get with my big rover, the 8 m/s of the mini was incredibly satisfying as an add on. The SAS does make getting an upside down rover back on its wheels incredibly easy if not totally unrealistic. Seats two. 

I like the alternate uniform color.  Where is that from?

I also landed some disposable unmanned rovers on Mun.  Great fun for a bit, but they are AWFUL for covering long distances between biomes.  Top speed on basic rover wheels was about 20 m/s, and then I was very thankful for the Reaction Wheels I installed.  Rover wheels go "poof" fast at that speed.

[Fearless Son]

35 minutes ago, justidutch said:

Yes, it is a different version, but only slightly.  The first version used Terriers as second stage engines, the second version (and the one that made orbit) used Thuds instead.  The rest of the plane is exactly the same.  Part count is exactly 30, as I haven't upgraded the hangar yet!

Edit: thought to detail the flight plan as best as I can remember, it was a few days ago:

- Panthers continuously in 'wet' mode, but only because I don't have action groups yet in my career.  If you do, probably start in 'dry' mode.

- I got up to about 9km and was going around 300m/s.

- angled down to -5 degrees AoA, for a speed dive. 

- as soon as the wind effects started changing from white to lightly reddish (maybe about 600m/s?) I angled up to about +10 degrees, and climbed

- the speed got up to around 830m/s, about 18km up, then started slowing down.  At that point I switched on the Thuds, angled up to +20 degrees, and rode that up to orbit.

- the flight finished with some excess oxidizer, so you could dump a little out to make the plane lighter, or add a little more fuel.

If I were to make a couple modifications, I would pull off the lower set of tail fins, adjust the upper set to be straight vertical stabilizers, and use the reclaimed two parts to put a couple of aerodynamic nose cones on rear end of the main wing tanks.  

[Red Shirt]

19 minutes ago, HalcyonSon said:

I like the alternate uniform color.  Where is that from?

Star Trek The Original Series Tunics, using Texture Replacer. As long as TR is up to date the suits seem to work fine. I gave Jeb gold status, all other pilots get green. Scientists are blue and Engineers get expendable red.

[Fearless Son]

30 minutes ago, HalcyonSon said:

I also landed some disposable unmanned rovers on Mun.  Great fun for a bit, but they are AWFUL for covering long distances between biomes.  Top speed on basic rover wheels was about 20 m/s, and then I was very thankful for the Reaction Wheels I installed.  Rover wheels go "poof" fast at that speed.

Unfortunately rovers are not especially functional on the Mun.  Low gravity means a lack of traction on the wheels, hence the difficulty getting up to speed, difficulty slowing down, and difficulty ascending steep slopes.  Unlike places like Minmus, the surface area of the Mun is too large to get around in a reasonable amount of time even with that low speed.  My usual solution is to equip the rover with something that will create a down force as it drives, like a small and efficient engine on low-throttle.  Helps if you have a toggle hotkey, since you only need that extra down force when accelerating, not when cruising in a straight line, and it does put a limiting factor on the rover's endurance.  Many players skip the rover entirely and make a light "biome hopper" kind of skiff or flying sled that can travel short distances in parabolic jumps with thrusters.  Not very precise and has a limited range, but much quicker.  

[HalcyonSon]

1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

Unfortunately rovers are not especially functional on the Mun.  Low gravity means a lack of traction on the wheels, hence the difficulty getting up to speed, difficulty slowing down, and difficulty ascending steep slopes.  Unlike places like Minmus, the surface area of the Mun is too large to get around in a reasonable amount of time even with that low speed.  My usual solution is to equip the rover with something that will create a down force as it drives, like a small and efficient engine on low-throttle.  Helps if you have a toggle hotkey, since you only need that extra down force when accelerating, not when cruising in a straight line, and it does put a limiting factor on the rover's endurance.  Many players skip the rover entirely and make a light "biome hopper" kind of skiff or flying sled that can travel short distances in parabolic jumps with thrusters.  Not very precise and has a limited range, but much quicker.  

I didn't notice a lack of acceleration- drove about the same as full grav and Mun grav tests at the KSC.  No problem getting up slopes either - the steepest crater walls I attempted just required a small amount of tacking across the slope.  My biggest issue with them was remembering to brake to a stop for quicksaves every few minutes.  I drove the same distance several times due to breakages, and quicksaving during a crater rim leap was almost physically painful because the rover repeatedly quickloaded into a fireball.  

Each rover was only meant to hit two or three biomes, and were outfitted and landed accordingly.  The most ambitious made it from the northern Highlands Craters to Highlands, Poles, and Polar Lowlands.  By the time I parked it on a peak above the odd looking northern canyon, it was down to two wheels from four.  Not the sturdiest design, but very persistent little guys.  Managed to pick up about 600 science with just two each of the Barometer, Thermometer, and Goo on four little rovers.

I played a bit this morning and came up with a small biome hopper that includes Barometer, Thermometer, Goo, Science Jr, Atmosphere Sampler, and Surface Scanner.  I crammed four on a carrier (replacing the rovers), along with the Survey Scanner and a lander with a Scientist.  I'm sort of testing different approaches to exploration.  This one goes to Minmus.  The hoppers should be capable of returning to the carrier, rather than merely transmitting their science back.  The Minmus lander will have a docking port connection to the carrier, rather than the Mun version's decoupler.  This should allow it to refuel and have enough dV to get home without launching another Klaw rescue.

Edited January 12, 2017 by HalcyonSon

[Leopard]

Watch my base headed for Duna explode, the crash report said "crashed in the sun", when out near Kerbal, having only just left the SOI..

 

The debris then proceeded to explode part by part as they were selected to see if there were any survivors..

 

Some sort of glitch I'm guessing as the mission was fine prior to this, liftoff, refuel in Kerbin orbit, insertion burn near the end of which it started to act a bit weird, engine off, and shut down yet the closest approach kept moving (significantly, like several hundred k) then relighting the engine and thrusting in any direction leading to it going further with the nodes not available...

Shut down, restarted and Bang! blew up when selected..

 

Ho hum, adios three crew kerbals whose names are unrecorded.

 

Plus side, my refuel tanker had a side experiment that worked, on its first flight I de-orbited it to watch it go bang, 'cept it didn't it blew up on impact, so this second flight I strapped a few parachutes and recovered it intact.. ready to stick back on a booster and use again.

 

Still just mucking about really until the new eggbox version is released as its so very glitchy currently, have managed to get a (small) probe out to Jool though which is my first orbit of the green blob, so progress..

Replacement Eve lander probe is in Kerbin orbit waiting for me to remember what phase angle I need for an insertion burn.. this to replace the last one that was 100% successful expect for 'someone' forgetting to give it an antenna...

 

Its good I don't get real rockets to play with, roll on 1.2 on consoles..

[Carl]

So uh, gonna be tomorrow when screenshots show, at the earliest, but running a DUna mission, got to beat a probe with bad comms there. Only way there in time, retrograde intercept with duna from kerbin. Yeah. hark at the crazy man, is going to take like 20kps just to get the intercept, never mind the braking maneuver at the other end.

[septemberWaves]

I launched a Laythe SSTO to the Astarael III mothership.

[Leopard]

Also unlocked enough bit last night to have a go at a space plane...

Well it got to space, if not orbit, landing gently by parachute in one case and the second test landing on its wheels in the middle of nowhere after a long sub orbital hop.

Will have to have a go at making one a bit smaller and punchier until I get better engines, starting to get the hang of planes, if not the hang for making them do anything, or landing them back at base

[something]

My interplanetary transfer vehicle (ITV) returned from Duna after a 10 Months mission (i.e. ten months real life, not in-game). As the technology available in my career save made some "minor" progress during that time, the ITV is now up for overdue maintenance (Jeb and Val decided, that Duna was awesome and skipped the scheduled launch window in order to stay longer on Duna than just a few days), refill and several upgrades before embarking again to Duna with a set of Kerbals.

So, today Jeb and Bill flew one of the standard spaceplanes to LKO in order to meet with the ITV. First step was to install two further antennae. Unfortunately Bill, the 4-star Engineer was a bit incompetent and one of the antennae spontaneously disassembled upon attachment. Well, now mission command has to repack the rocket which will rendezvous (in order to deliver some bigger parts which do not fit in the spaceplane) and add a couple of antennae, hoping that Bill will be in the state of installing /one/ of those...

 

Bill on EVA trying to attach two antennae to the ITV

[DerekL1963]

If KSP hadn't decided that I couldn't select the docking port on the tanker as a target, I would proved that this lander can cycle from the tanker to Duna's surface, and back.  Meh, close enough.



Reference picture of the lander in the VAB.

[Carl]

Quote

If KSP hadn't decided that I couldn't select the docking port on the tanker as a target, I would proved that this lander can cycle from the tanker to Duna's surface, and back.  Meh, close enough.
 

Try varying viewing angle, i find you have to get quite close and often a specific angle, yeah it sucks.

[DerekL1963]

51 minutes ago, Carl said:

Try varying viewing angle, i find you have to get quite close and often a specific angle, yeah it sucks.

I tried a variety of things, no dice.  But having gotten within 50m and having more than sufficient mono I called the test a success and moved on.  It was an unmanned vehicle in the sandbox, so it's not like I *had* to dock.

[Carl]

Odd, might wanna drop a save of the situation into the bug reports forum if you have it.

[Leafbaron]

2 hours ago, Leopard said:

Watch my base headed for Duna explode, the crash report said "crashed in the sun", when out near Kerbal, having only just left the SOI..

 

The debris then proceeded to explode part by part as they were selected to see if there were any survivors..

 

Some sort of glitch I'm guessing as the mission was fine prior to this, liftoff, refuel in Kerbin orbit, insertion burn near the end of which it started to act a bit weird, engine off, and shut down yet the closest approach kept moving (significantly, like several hundred k) then relighting the engine and thrusting in any direction leading to it going further with the nodes not available...

Shut down, restarted and Bang! blew up when selected..

 

Ho hum, adios three crew kerbals whose names are unrecorded.

 

Plus side, my refuel tanker had a side experiment that worked, on its first flight I de-orbited it to watch it go bang, 'cept it didn't it blew up on impact, so this second flight I strapped a few parachutes and recovered it intact.. ready to stick back on a booster and use again.

 

Still just mucking about really until the new eggbox version is released as its so very glitchy currently, have managed to get a (small) probe out to Jool though which is my first orbit of the green blob, so progress..

Replacement Eve lander probe is in Kerbin orbit waiting for me to remember what phase angle I need for an insertion burn.. this to replace the last one that was 100% successful expect for 'someone' forgetting to give it an antenna...

 

Its good I don't get real rockets to play with, roll on 1.2 on consoles..

This has happened to me as well.....

[Brownhair2]

Started sending pieces of my base to Serran. I don't have any pictures because the rockets all kinda look the same, but don't worry. They'll get weirder soon enough.

 

[septemberWaves]

26 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

Started sending pieces of my base to Serran.

Is this in 1.2.2? if so, how did you get New Horizons to work properly?

[Brownhair2]

2 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

Is this in 1.2.2? if so, how did you get New Horizons to work properly?

I dunno. I just updated Kopernicus and it seems to work fine, besides the KSC view being broken. But that can be bypassed by using the buttons. What issues are you having?

[Triop]

Today we were pushing the limit.

 

[Fireheart318]

On 1/2/2017 at 11:21 AM, LameLefty said:

I'm still getting used to playing on my new computer after a few months without a machine. So today I just did a few exercises in basic flight - I had previously orbited an Aeris 4A spaceplane. Today I launched a modified Kerbal-X to dock with it, just to see if I remembered how to dock (just kidding - been playing this game for well over 3-1/2 years). The practice was good, and it was fun to see how pretty the game can be with the right beautification mods.

 

Sorry for the wall of already-been-posted pics, I can't remove them for some reason. At least they're loveing amazing! Awesome job on that!

Anyway, what mods are you using for the amazingness? Scatterer and EVE? If you're using EVE and don't like the cities you can just delete the citylights files in the .cfg folder somewhere

Edited January 13, 2017 by Fireheart318

[LameLefty]

7 minutes ago, Fireheart318 said:

Anyway, what mods are you using for the amazingness? Scatterer and EVE? If you're using EVE and don't like the cities you can just delete the citylights files in the .cfg

I'm using SVE (Stock Visual Enhancements), which packages together a modified EVE, Scatterer, and Distant Object Enhancement, along with RealPlumes and SmokeScreen.

Edited January 13, 2017 by LameLefty

[Fireheart318]

1 minute ago, LameLefty said:

I'm using SVE (Stock Visual Enhancements), which packages together a modified EVE, Scattere, Distant Object Enhancement, along with RealPlumes and SmokeScreen.

Sweetles! Also, sorry if I came across as mean about the pics. They really are amazing! Also also, how much RAM do you have? I have 16

Edited January 13, 2017 by Fireheart318

[Triop]

Today, we did a stock car dragrace on the runway, top speed: 264.5 m/s = 950 kph/590 mph.

 

[Carl]

Ok, my last attempt as a result of a bug, (xenon flow does not respect cross feeding), on the duna relay rescue had to revert to a prior save, so i built this instead, in case your wondering, it still may not be enough to slow down at the other end, but it will get me on the course i need to be on.

4600t on the pad in case your wondering. Will be picking up tommorow, bed for now.

 

Yes i've totally lost it, i agree.

[Servo]

I continued work on my X-15. Aerodynamics are a pain, especially minimizing drag. If I start about 8km and 300m/s (well within the capability of my B-52), I can make it to mach 3, but I was hoping for mach 5.

That said, a solid visual recreation was still the main goal, which I think I achieved.

Tomorrow, proper drop tests.