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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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Yesterday being Sunday meant I would spend a little time playing KSP Demo.  I never play the full game on a Sunday, as I have to get up at a silly time the next morning for work and don't want to sit up half the night playing KSP.  So what did I do?

SSTO's are something which I've never really thought about very much.  Obviously watching some of the videos on Youtube which shows these things returning gracefully and with pinpoint precision to the KSC is seriously impressive, but most (not all I admit) were basically space planes which I have absolutely no idea how to build, no idea how to fly... I tell you people, I don't even know how to line an aircraft up with the runway when trying to land!  So nope, SSTO's were not for me...

So last night I opened up the demo and started fiddling about with the few parts available.  I'd read somewhere that offsetting engines close together can increase their thrust or was it the TWR - I can't remember, but anyway it's supposed to increase something! :D  So I started botching things together in the VAB.

lVSc5eM.png

This was the first incarnation of the thing, it being an SSTO couldn't have been further from my mind!  You'll notice the second stage sitting just under the command pod.

After a few false starts as I figured out how to fly this vessel, I realised that tipping before 70m/s was going to see it flipping out uncontrollably and have it smashing into the ground way too quickly for any normal Kerbal to survive.  However after this and it would fly reasonably well, though it would fight all the way up to around 45K.  However once I got above this, it was much easier to pilot, and from there to Ap was incident free.  It was only when I fired up the engines again to complete my orbit that I realised just how close I was to making orbit with the first stage alone; curiosity took over now, more experiments had to be carried out...

The MkII saw a reduction in the amount of fuel in the upper stage.

cxkfxt7.png

I still wasn't confident this was going to work and I wanted something for the Kerbal to be able to escape disaster in, or return from orbit in the event of running out of fuel in the prototype SSTO.  This reduction in weight did indeed result in me getting into orbit with the main stage, but as feared, it meant not having sufficient fuel to get back down again; lucky I had that "lifeboat" then, eh? :wink:

The final development saw the remaining fuel and engine of the upper stage being removed, a re-positioning of the RCS and two additional RCS blocks being added.

CCDQCgZ.png

Here it is sitting on the launchpad waiting for its maiden flight, and while I was a little disappointed that I'd used all my fuel to begin my descent, having hoped to have had a little in reserve for a last second burn before touchdown, I must say that this thing actually works surprisingly well, all things considered.  Apart from the fuel and four of the six winglets at the bottom of the vessel which explode during reentry, everything else survives to be refurbished and sent up on other missions.

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4 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

After that, I put a small unmanned rover on the Moon.  Not particularly fast, it tops out at about 10m/s on flat ground:

Looks just like my bugs, and about as fast. My initial test (for Bug-Drop-1) was on Mun. Currently, I've 2 of 4 bugs surviving on Duna. I posted about this a few pages back.

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I continued in my quest to add PBR (Unity-Standard) shader support to KSP.

And got some nice looking SS along the way :)

(both straight screenshots, no editing or touch-up)

Yw0Zspt.png

VGMmPwz.png

I would have to say it is coming along very nicely (the shader integration).

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1 hour ago, Shadowmage said:

I continued in my quest to add PBR (Unity-Standard) shader support to KSP.

And got some nice looking SS along the way :)

(both straight screenshots, no editing or touch-up)

Yw0Zspt.png

VGMmPwz.png

I would have to say it is coming along very nicely (the shader integration).

:o So pretty... 

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Landed the first stage of my 2.5m lifters close to KSC successfully today. Not just once, but twice!

The first landing took some attempts, mainly getting the location right and not burning up brakes or landing legs. After I figured out everything about approaching the KSC, the second landing was successful first try.

Edited by Delay
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2 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

continued in my quest to add PBR (Unity-Standard) shader support to KSP.

And got some nice looking SS along the way :)

(both straight screenshots, no editing or touch-up)

Quoted for awareness. :D

Seriously, y’all gotta check out @Shadowmage‘s stuff. He’s doing things with textures and shaders I only vaguely understand and can’t use at the moment, but damn it looks cool. And if I am correct, his shader work will eventually be released for other mods to take advantage of. :cool:

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On 11/6/2017 at 1:22 PM, Delay said:

So, I have built a lifter stage for my Duna and Ike probes. Turns out, it's an SSTO, not even close of running out of fuel by the time I'm in orbit.

Should I put a probe core on in and try to land it back at the KSC? If yes, how do I consistantly get there?

You could do that, and landing at the KSC is mostly a matter of practice (though if you really want to, you could park a small rover or something at the KSC and use it as a landing target, but I'd suggest practicing precision powered landings on the Mun first). Or you could build a smaller, more optimized rocket. Or you could keep the same rocket but use a bigger payload.

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19 hours ago, eloquentJane said:

 <snip />you could park a small rover or something at the KSC and use it as a landing target, <snip />

I'll add here that if you put a flag at both ends of the runway and then another one about a kilometer further inland, you've got yourself a primitive ILS. A small rover works just as well here; if you reclass it as a base, you'll be able to see it from a good long ways off. Might be something to consider if you ever want to try your hand at planes.

Edited by capi3101
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On 2017. 11. 06. at 4:13 PM, Julien Kerman said:

Hahahaaha yeah :D:D. But to be honest, such a speed is quite dangerous especially at the Moon ^^. When I drove down a hill and tried to steer the Rover, it did around six somersaults before

Donbro flew out of it and both hit the surface with more than 35m/s. Luckily he and the Rover survived. This happened around 4 times :rolleyes:

Imagine the same on Minmus... :D  At a mere 35m/s, you're 1 pebble away from flying. Right now I'm doing a Minmus Elkano-challenge. I've thrashed my rover 2 times because of the speed...

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I successfully completed atmospheric testing of my newly designed nuclear powered rocket.

Apparently it was somewhat polluting as this is the view I got when I returned to the space centre:

X2TGUN0.png

I feel pretty bad for giving the Kerbals global warming but it should make it a lot easier to test out floating bases!

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Oiff said:

I successfully completed atmospheric testing of my newly designed nuclear powered rocket.

Apparently it was somewhat polluting as this is the view I got when I returned to the space centre:

X2TGUN0.png

I feel pretty bad for giving the Kerbals global warming but it should make it a lot easier to test out floating bases!

 

 

It should make splashdowns much easier too! :D

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ZOjRVMh.png

Today I launched a moho flyby probe. The probe is currently on an intercept trajectory, but the signal strength is too weak. But I have a plan:

1. Upgrade the tracking station before the probe reaches moho

2. If I still can't make contact, take the science, and transmit it at the kerbol apoapsis

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This is turning out to be an interesting science save.  Landed really close to whatever that is, completely by accident.  I have a feeling it's the Mun Armstrong monument, which I've never visited in any of my games.  Didn't even notice it until I was almost all the way down.

Unfortunately this is just a probe, and I can't walk/fly out and take a look at it easily.  Probe still has almost 1,600 dV, so I could probably hop it over there.

screenshot185e.png

 

...yup.  Getting back into orbit might be interesting.

 

screenshot187.png

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1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

1vzOBJD.png

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

u8BL2HE.png

CRAP!

q3oSqv3.png

Daphbelle's face doe...

This is KSP in a nutshell

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18 hours ago, winged said:

After months of preparations I've finally landed on Ganymede:

gZZexNA.png

Are working in the video for your YouTube channel? Anyways, truely jaw-dropping, amazing work, i really appreciate your work!

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