What did you do in KSP1 today?

[septemberWaves]

@Allocthonous just a tip: if you're trying to show off vehicles it's usually best to try taking screenshots in the sunlight. I can just about tell that your rover has a Mk2 cockpit at each end, but that's all that can really be discerned from your pictures.

[DerekL1963]

6 minutes ago, Allocthonous said:

Better pictures of the rover in question:

Better as compared to what?   If you can't wait until daylight, get the Ambient Light mod or give us a shot in the VAB.

[Daylight4449]

i got my first ever orbital space-shuttle to launch! i think i have the words "catastrophic failure!" burned into my retinas. also congrats everyone for your accomplishments!

Edited August 30, 2017 by Daylight4449

[capi3101]

Installed EVE yesterday. So far I'm liking the clouds.

Yesterday began with a mission to put a probe into a high polar orbit around Kerbin. In deciding what type of probe to use (go with a Beep-Beep 7 rocket, Boop-Boop 7 rocket or launch an Auk IV spaceplane), I decided to go with a Boop-Boop probe but I also went ahead and gave the design a tech upgrade, swapping out the original probe cores for RGUs and stack batteries. Raised the price a little but made the design nicer overall and gave it some additional capabilities. I did get the probe into position eventually, but only then did I decide to read the fine print. Discovered I should've had a resource scanner aboard - which means I should've used an Auk. I'll have to redo the mission today as likely as not.

I also launched another Bill Clinton 7b probe on a junk collection mission to Minmus; that probe will arrive in nine days.

Next was the launch of a Hellhound 7 rover to Mun, the third such rover I've delivered to Mun on this save. The rover arrived successfully about two kilometers from the target zone on a twenty degree grade at night. After waiting for local sunrise to come around it performed a 4-waypoint survey for seismic readings at sector RMK-D in the Munar midlands.

Hellhound 7 rover, an old design that still does the job.

Several burns and arrivals happened next. The first Jiffy Lube 7 parts lander I sent to Mun wound up doing a flyby since I either deleted its KAC SOI alarm or forgot to set one all together. A burn put it back on course for Mun, where it should arrive in five days. A bunch of stuff arrived at Minmus - a Hellhound 7 rover, the ferry ship Strange Cargo, the replacement Minmusport station and a Spamcan 7a passenger lander. All four of these craft are scheduled to enter orbit later today, and - this time around - they're all already on low-inclination approaches. No ramming space stations into Minmus this time around...

After a failed and reverted attempt to land a Bad Idea 2 survey plane near the Shores on Kerbin (some of the hilliest shores I think I've ever seen, BTW), I decided to try to convert the design into a mini-rover carrier. Actually worked out okay:

With the right set of mods, you can get away with crap like this sometimes...in this case I credit Atmosphere Autopilot with keeping the plane trimmed to account for the extra weight on the tail.

Bomb's Payload's away!!

The plane circled around for a while to make sure the rover landed safely (didn't want it to get garbage collected), after which Gilvin flew the plane back for a successful landing at KSC 09. The rover's command system wound up getting oriented incorrectly so it wasn't a pleasure to drive, but it did successfully complete the temperature survey mission I had in the area.

Ended my day with some small fry contracts, a quick parts test and Munar surface science, which Magster did from Piper Alpha with an EVA report.

[JadeOfMaar]

So I painted an intake last night...

Made it look like a ZZZ Thing. Then it took its turn in testing as part of another new big thing I'm brewing.  

[septemberWaves]

3 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

This looks like what would happen if somebody took Sputnik 1 and made a transformer out of it.

[JadeOfMaar]

Just now, eloquentJane said:

This looks like what would happen if somebody took Sputnik 1 and made a transformer out of it.

Lol! You're right, it does look touched by the AllSpark.

[harrisjosh2711]

Testing out my new ride.

[eddiew]

Today in KSP I realised that you can press shift to sprint.

...I have had this game for nearly 3 years and never known that. I only discovered it today because I've been playing a lot of Ark Survival and pressed the button instinctively! Oh my gawd, all those wasted hours of watching kerbals waddle slowly around on the surface  

Also, started a Martian road trip, but that's honestly the less exciting of the two things. Shift to sprint, man, that's... that's life changing.

This on the other hand... this never happened. This is a staged mock up for later health and safety instruction manuals.

Edited August 30, 2017 by eddiew

[Jacke]

5 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

So I painted an intake last night...

Made it look like a ZZZ Thing.

Alternately, you could have made it look like a ZZ Top Thing.

[JadeOfMaar]

@Jacke I see what you did there.

[SamBelanger]

Today I created a new game!

 

 

[MaxxQ]

6 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

So I painted an intake last night...

Made it look like a ZZZ Thing. Then it took its turn in testing as part of another new big thing I'm brewing.  

Something about the art style is making me think, "Homeworld".

[roboslacker]

Today, I discovered thermometer hinges.

[G'th]

Started playing the game again after a long while.  And holy jesus have things improved so much.  For one, was able to fully mod the game with everything i wanted in in less than an hour and didn't have to do a single bit of troubleshooting (outside of trimming some parts I know I wasn't going to use after perusing the part list), which is a definite first.  And two, the game is 100% stable.  Only had one crash thus far and thats only because I screwed up a launch on a part heavy ship and it crashed too close to KSC.  Which is fine.

 

And then, as can be seen in the shots above, was able to a full on Apollo 15-esque mission, rover and all, without any hiccups or having to reload the game, which even in stock I was never able to do before.  So this is just awesome.

[anti_con2]

I made my first mun landing, really proud of myself

[qzgy]

Nothing much. Holy crap, 6.4x scale kerbin needs a lot of delta-v to get a manned thing into orbit. Also may have needed to cheat with the funds a bit.

[Dman979]

1 hour ago, anti_con2 said:

I made my first mun landing, really proud of myself

Way to go! Hopefully it wasn't as bad as my first landing

[CatastrophicFailure]

39 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Nothing much. Holy crap, 6.4x scale kerbin needs a lot of delta-v to get a manned thing into orbit. Also may have needed to cheat with the funds a bit.

*evil triumphant laughter*

oh, and how's the stability going?

[qzgy]

10 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

Way to go! Hopefully it wasn't as bad as my first landing

This feels like a story I need to hear....

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

*evil triumphant laughter*

oh, and how's the stability going?

Better, actually. Haven't had any crashes since the last boot up.

I did manage to get a small probe into orbit, but not yet a manned vehicle. Either means more science grinding or more rocket designing wizadry.

Edited August 31, 2017 by qzgy

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 minutes ago, qzgy said:

This feels like a story I need to hear....

Better, actually. Haven't had any crashes since the last boot up.

I did manage to get a small probe into orbit, but not yet a manned vehicle. Either means more science grinding or more rocket designing wizadry.

If you haven't already, look into a fuel mod like SMURFF or RealFuels (caution: learning curve) that rebalances stuff. Stock engines/fuel tanks are ridiculously heavy for their size. Works ok in a vanilla game, but not beyond 3x scale. 

[qzgy]

12 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

If you haven't already, look into a fuel mod like SMURFF or RealFuels (caution: learning curve) that rebalances stuff. Stock engines/fuel tanks are ridiculously heavy for their size. Works ok in a vanilla game, but not beyond 3x scale. 

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Edit: Tested out SMURFF with the things set to 0.6 - much easier now. Thanks!

Edited August 31, 2017 by qzgy

[SamBelanger]

Today i do in school! 

[capi3101]

Yesterday began with the successful landing of a Hellhound 7 rover 1.2 kilometers from sector RG7F-Z in the Minmus Lowlands. The rover conducted a successful seismic survey at three waypoints in the area, then began a twenty kilometer drive to sector VWQR-1, which was in the northwestern part of the Great Flats and adjoining foothills of the the Lowlands. There, it conducted a temperature survey at three waypoints. Since I was in the Great Flats and scanners had picked up abundant ore deposits in the area, I decided to see if I could find a decent ore spot in the Great Flats along the equator, and drove the surface-scanner equipped Hellhound thataway (about ten degrees of longitude from sector VWQR-1). Having found a decent spot and having done a reasonable amount of roving, I parked the rover. It will act as the landing marker for the Deepwater Horizon refinery once it arrives.

Hellhound 7 rover, headed from sector RG7F-Z to sector VWQR-1 on Minmus.

 

The drive was interrupted by the orbital burn of the replacement Minmusport space station, which was successfully put into a 10x10 equatorial orbit around the minty moon, and by the plane-alignment burns of three craft waiting to rendezvous and dock with the space station - a Spamcan 7 rescue craft, a Spamcan 7a passenger lander, and the ferry ship Strange Cargo. The ferry ship Next Objective, which had been waiting at Minmus for something to dock to for a very long time (two weeks at least), was also finally set up to rendezvous with the space station. All four craft eventually docked safely to the station, with the two Spamcans arriving at the station minutes apart from one another. The docking operations fulfilled the last of the Explore Minmus contracts I had in progress, opening up the first of the Explore Duna series - the first Duna window is in 139 days, and the plan is to spend the time between then and now getting my Kerbals uprated to two-stars and to raise funding for the mission (which no doubt will also see Kerbals on Ike before everything is said and done). First step of that was, naturally, putting the Kerbals I'd brought to Minmus down on the surface:

Spamcan 7a on the surface of Minmus, parked awful damn close to that rover I was talking about earlier...

Jeb and pilot Nelny Kerman (capsule commanders of Strange Cargo and Next Objective, respectively) went down to the surface along with tourists Tati and Henory Kerman, with the two pilots planting flags (one of which was for contract). Jeb also took an EVA report that was later broadcast back to KSC from Minmusport for contract. The lander returned to the station safely and the four Kerbals were swapped for scientists Gillie and Zelwin Kerman as well as engineers Eriemy and Dilnard Kerman. The lander will be proceeding down to the surface later today, where the four KSC staffmembers are scheduled to plant flags. Again, one of those will be for contract.

Not much else was done today. The Jiffy Lube 7 lander flight that I had botched several days ago made it back to Mun and landed successfully at the Piper Alpha refinery site:

Jiffy Lube front and center, with Piper Alpha and a Hellhound rover in the background.

I'm still debating as to whether or not I want to overhaul the rover with the crane conversion package the Jiffy Lube is carrying. That might be something I do if it becomes necessary. I do want to move that relay antenna over to the refinery - I know I want to do that already...

Having picked up an ore hauling contract at Minmus, I went ahead and launched a Nostromo 7 ore hauler towards the minty moon. Owing to bad burning, it will arrive there in 23 days. I also had a mission to haul a KERBalloon 2.5m parachute up into Kerbin's atmosphere. I decided to do that with what turned out to be a long but pretty balloon flight...

http://imgur.com/a/hfGAa

I do like the EVE mod, I must say. It's a damn shame the balloon flight failed - I deflated it too early and the package didn't reach the required contract speed before it went below the target altitude, and if you play with KERBalloons, you know the ascent is never much faster than 5-6 m/s (so it took half an hour in-game to do, which still took a long time even on 4x physics warp). Re-did the mission (last thing I did yesterday) with a Hammer SRB, which certainly did the trick...

 

Edited August 31, 2017 by capi3101
forum seems to have eaten the imgur album of the balloon flights, trying a re-attachment.

[Dman979]

9 hours ago, qzgy said:

This feels like a story I need to hear....

My first Mun rocket had LFO engines on the bottom of the SRBs. It wasn't just overdesigned, it was overdesigned badly. I destroyed everything but my capsule, but I was so excited that I EVA'd Jeb, jetpacked him at over 70 m/s, and ended up killing him when he ragdolled into the terrain.

That's the short version.