What did you do in KSP1 today?

[capi3101]

I'm up to a solid month now without reporting on this thread. Seriously - the first entry in my log is dated December 30th...

Short version - I've been mainly dealing with the First Duna Expedition, getting the bulk of my staff up to 4-star ratings by landing/planting flags on both Duna and Ike. Ike's tapped out of science at this point, while I've largely left Duna untouched due to the fact that the lander really only had enough fuel to land and return to orbit at points along the equator. I also determined that it was actually more fuel efficient for the Old Bessie 7a heavy fuel lander I'd designed to land on Duna to go all the way to Ike, land at the Scan Queen refinery and return with a load of fuel than it was for the lander to just go down to the Enchova Central refinery on Duna's surface. With the fuel savings, multiple crew landings at Duna from the Dunaport space station were possible with each load (as opposed to a fuel run after every passenger run with the way things were originally intended). I also did a refit run to bring back the skycrane for the Hellhound 7 rover Beulah with me to Kerbin; the craft wasn't designed to return after delivering its payload but by adding a dockable parachute module, it should now be capable of a return mission.

MSV Fat Man has brought everybody home at this point (except for the four Kerbals manning the outposts in the Duna DOI); this afternoon I will bring everybody down in the Auk XIV 36-passenger spaceplane I flew up to the Kerbinport space station a couple of days ago. I'll also be making the attempt to land the skycrane; I'm hopeful that in doing so I will finish out all of the Explore Ike contracts. I'm still guessing Eve's next, but I've never actually made it this far without the developers putting out a new release...

Screenies? I've got 'em. Don't really have time to post them right now, though...maybe later.

[Hotel26]

8 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!!!

Classic stuff. Yes, I'm old, too old... 61.

I think I can make you feel (slightly) younger, sir.  "Let me assure you that you are not the oldest geezer devoted to KSP and in this forum!!" 

(There.  Did that actually work...?  )

 

Edited January 31, 2018 by Hotel26

[Guest]

Huh, I'm only 46. Nice to be a young'un at a gaming forum for a change.

1 hour ago, XB-70A said:

The last one being equipped with three different antennas, it was lowered to a 50x49 km orbit and will stay around Gilly definitely (helping the two others probes orbiting Eve to establish a good connection with Kerbin)

Out of curiosity, which three antennas and why? I can only see an HG-55 in the picture and that's obviously not a relay antenna, so what are the other two?

I also thought that you can't combine a regular and a relay antenna to relay messages, only for direct connections. If you can, you could shave off nearly 500 kg and a quite a lot of bulk by combining an 88-88 with an HG-5 (0.17 tons) instead of an RA-100 (0.65 tons). Have you checked if this works?

[Hotel26]

@LordFerret, I'm gonna extend my remark...

I can't imagine any event that can change a young life or affect a lifelong outlook quite like arriving at school on a Tuesday morning, just turned 14 years of age, and to be assembled with the rest of the school during that morning to watch Neil Armstrong set the first human foot on the Moon.  I have to say that I think around about 14 to witness that is the perfect age for producing the most profound impact.  I am so glad to have seen this event live.

[Cydonian Monk]

I’m still messing around with my new EVA suit textures....

I think I might make the gloves white for this particular variety... or maybe not. I also still have a bit to do along the sides where the straps meet up. Eventually I’ll be happy with this and will move on to IVA suits (which won’t be too very different).

Edited January 31, 2018 by Cydonian Monk

[Theflyingfox]

Apollo - style Duna mission (My second ever) 

Album https://imgur.com/a/BrqNx will appear when post is submitted

Edited January 31, 2018 by Theflyingfox

[LordFerret]

3 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

@LordFerret, I'm gonna extend my remark...

I can't imagine any event that can change a young life or affect a lifelong outlook quite like arriving at school on a Tuesday morning, just turned 14 years of age, and to be assembled with the rest of the school during that morning to watch Neil Armstrong set the first human foot on the Moon.  I have to say that I think around about 14 to witness that is the perfect age for producing the most profound impact.  I am so glad to have seen this event live.

I watched the entire event unfold live on tv with my dad. I was allowed to skip school the following day... I think you mean Monday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

Other events having an affect; Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, John Glenn ... not to mention assassinations: Kennedy(s), Jack Ruby, King. Live history is fascinating.

[astrobond]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

@LordFerret, I'm gonna extend my remark...

I can't imagine any event that can change a young life or affect a lifelong outlook quite like arriving at school on a Tuesday morning, just turned 14 years of age, and to be assembled with the rest of the school during that morning to watch Neil Armstrong set the first human foot on the Moon.  I have to say that I think around about 14 to witness that is the perfect age for producing the most profound impact.  I am so glad to have seen this event live.

lol, i'm a young 52 years old ksp player, but i remember as if that was yesterday my dad asking me to wake up at 4am to see the men on the moon on the tv in France !!! i was 4 years old , that was awesome !

[MaxwellsDemon]

18 minutes ago, astrobond said:

lol, i'm a young 52 years old ksp player, but i remember as if that was yesterday my dad asking me to wake up at 4am to see the men on the moon on the tv in France !!! i was 4 years old , that was awesome !

Sigh... wish I had that memory.  I wasn't quite 2 and although my parents got me up to watch it, I don't have an actual memory of it.        I do remember some of the later landings, though.

[RealKerbal3x]

Today we landed on the minty moon!!

After a few reloads of my quicksave to get the hang of landing from a retrograde orbit (which I only did a couple of weeks ago on my ‘simulation’ of the Kerbollo 5, so I’m a bit out of practice), I made my landing burn. Annoyingly, the only good landing site I could find was slightly south of my orbit, but with about 2.6 km/s of delta-V, I could afford to do the plane-shift burn.

Eventually we were on final descent to a small Minmus flat. The descent went well, and we touched down beautifully at about 2 m/s.

Time to get on with the fine words and noble sentiments! Rosie Kerman got out to plant a flag, naming the ice (rock?) flat that they had landed on Rosgar Flats, after their comrade in orbit.

Then Kurt Kerman (named after the youtuber KurtJMac, famous for his Minecraft Far Lands or Bust series) got out to look across the desolate landscape of Minmus. Then he got to work. Yay, Kurt!!

Using the Kerbal Inventory System mod, Kurt assembled a rover. (If you want something productive for your kerbals to do while on EVA, I highly recommend that you check that out). However, when I dropped a solar panel on the surface for attachment later, it exploded, which was annoying. Whatever.

When the rover was completed, Kurt and Rosie took it on a test drive about 300m from the lander, then back. It turned out that the rover worked fine with only one solar panel, so I could have only brought one. The rover had to be handled gently in Minmus’ low gravity, as it seemed prone to flipping if you tried to turn at a higher speed. But that’s what you get with a DIY rover (actually a DIY anything). 

After the test, they drove back to the lander. Rosie got back in to have some snacks and Kerbal tea, while Kurt stood on top of a storage box for a moment to contemplate the landscape. Then he jumped back in the rover and drove off, headed for some less-boring terrain that was not perfectly flat.

I do like the beauty and desolation of Minmus. Wouldn’t it be cool if Earth had a real-life equivalent of it? Anyway, Kurt stopped about 600m from the lander to take a surface sample (apparently F5 is the shortcut for a surface sample). I think I saw him eying the sample hungrily......

I left it there for today. Tomorrow I should be able to get the little green dudes home, with a quicksave and a bit of luck....

Edited January 31, 2018 by RealKerbal3x
Fixed link

[Puggonaut]

So erm after testing the Duna Rover , i thought ok lets fly it there an let Jeb Explore.............

I did forget one small thing to test , can he get inside the B****y thing , oh well he hung on for about 5km's as he was chauffered to the drill site .

good day no one died.........so far......................

[Martian Emigrant]

Eve is a Harsh mistress.

 

ME

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Eve is a Harsh mistress.

Yeah.

I did manage to fit a tiny rover into the glider by the way. It's very cute. Now I want to send it to Eve to see what she thinks. It kind of changed the entire meaning of the thing -- now it's like a miniature, kawaii version of those Japanese robots that transform themselves. It's a rocket! No wait, it's a plane! It's a glider! Surprise, it's a rover!

This little thing also illustrates just how much the choice of engine matters. It's capable of flying itself from LKO to the Eve surface on internal fuel... but if taking off from KSC, it can barely get off the ground with those Terriers.

But man is that Eve plane hard. It's like trying to design five craft at once.

I've gotten most of the individual pieces of the journey to work (on Kerbin) but never in exactly the same craft, and every slight variant seems to have its own problems. I've also seen more tremendously entertaining explosions than ever. I just got one compromise to Kerbin orbit, and lo and behold, that one summoned the Kraken as soon as I thought myself safely in LKO.

I'm starting to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew with that one. I just really like the idea of dispensing with all those pesky parachutes and heat shields and instead gliding in elegantly in a featherweight plane. It is possible my Firewing was not the ideal template for the idea and I might have to think of something less complex and more robust.

[Alpha 360]

I messed around with that new mod. FMRS (Flight Manager for Reusable Stages). So far. Not so good. All I have done so far is revert the flight accidently after everything went perfectly. I have tried twice, and plan not to try once again after I receive guidance on how in the world it works. I have very little idea.........

Then again, this is the kerbal way of doing it. 

[Fearless Son]

10 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Nope, that just carried ... pretty much everything really: the probe core, batteries, a reaction wheel, science experiments and a science collection lunchbox because I figured (correctly) that I wouldn't be able to transmit them as quickly as I collected them as I passed through the atmosphere and over a bunch of biomes. 

Good idea though. I think I could make it work: basically take everything that's already there, put wheels on it, add a docking port so I can release it, and make the bay face downward so the glider will drop the rover after landing. Even antennas work from inside bays so I could move that from the skin to the rover. Only added mass and volume would be the wheels and the docking port. Hmm...

I like to use small cargo bays for my "utility" items too, like the aforementioned probe cores, batteries, and reaction wheels.  In addition, I tend to put extendable solar panels in there too so they can stay safe from atmospheric forces during entry.  As for antenna, an antenna in a bay will not work unless the bay is open at the time.  I think that this is probably not too big an issue for you, as it can travel most of its journey with the bay hanging open, only to close it during aerobreaking and descent.  But fair warning, during that period of closure your control will be severely limited unless you have a nearby relay in orbit, as the built-in antenna is pretty weak.

I assumed that the purpose of the glider was (compared to a simpler direct descent lander) to let you be more selective about your exact landing site.  A wheeled-only rover is useless if you splashdown and have no solid surface to get traction on, after all.

[Fearless Son]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

This little thing also illustrates just how much the choice of engine matters. It's capable of flying itself from LKO to the Eve surface on internal fuel... but if taking off from KSC, it can barely get off the ground with those Terriers.

Speaking of, your design seems so beautifully featherweight that I almost feel like Terrier's are overkill.  Have you considered replacing them with Sparks?  Their thrust is lower, but their ISP is even better, and you can swap out the Advanced Nose Cone A with a Small Nose Cone (which only weights 1/8th as much and has a smaller drag cross-section.)  The reduction in mass and increase in ISP would probably get you more a little more delta-V you can spend on breaking maneuvers over Eve and have an even better choice of landing site.

[XB-70A]

8 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Out of curiosity, which three antennas and why? I can only see an HG-55 in the picture and that's obviously not a relay antenna, so what are the other two?

 

Sorry for all the delay, the day was a bit busy around here...

You are right, I should have posted the correct picture (!). Here it is:

A 88-88, the poor HG-5, and a more than useless DTS-M1, just for the look.

 

8 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I also thought that you can't combine a regular and a relay antenna to relay messages, only for direct connections. If you can, you could shave off nearly 500 kg and a quite a lot of bulk by combining an 88-88 with an HG-5 (0.17 tons) instead of an RA-100 (0.65 tons). Have you checked if this works?

You are teaching me something here! I was not aware of this possibility.

The only resources I'm having right now around Eve are a small relay:

Nearly the same stuff at the same number than the most recent one (there is a RA-2 in this one).

And a probe:

With a single HG-55, four HG-5, and still the useless DTS-M1  (plus two Com-16 for the look only).

 

 

But honestly they never were really powerful. Even for the landed probe the link with the KSC was pretty limited as we can see here:

 

 

I guess it would be worth the price to try different configurations.

[Drag0n]

Jeb, for the first time in this career fresh save, went to the Mün!

Landed!

 

Orbiting the Mün...

Hello Kerbin!

REENTRY!!

Safe splashdown!

 

[ProtoJeb21]

One of my last major posts here was about my reorganization of bases and stations after the capture of a large E-Class asteroid I could use for mining operations. My goal was to move the Rhea Base on the Mun towards the poles for science operations, transport the Zemyna Station to Minmus, set up a facility on the asteroid Maui, and build a mining/science based on Minmus. Since then things have gone very well...and VERY badly.

Let's start with the good stuff. To my delight, I had left the four function descent engines on Rhea Base, which allowed me to "hop" it to a more northern location. I decided not to land it exactly at the North Pole, but rather at an area near the pole and other biomes. I'm hoping to send a large rover there eventually to serve as a mobile science-gathering facility, which will survey nearby (~50 km radius) areas before bringing back data for further processing. Following the successful touchdown of Rhea Base, I delivered a proper science lab module.

Next came the re-organization of Kupole Station in orbit around Kerbin. I moved its individual parts to form a long, more easily maneuverable spacecraft to dock with modules I later attached to Maui.

However, as I approached the asteroid, things went wrong.

If you can't tell from the screenshot above, the modules on Maui were so unstable they blew off of the asteroid entirely. In fact, everything became too unstable. I realized that turning such a large asteroid into a fuel depot with my limited knowledge was all for naught, so I rescued the kerbals stationed on Maui and left.

All this stuff took place back in October or November. I took some time to develop Interstellar Adventure Revived, experiment around with @Jett_Quasar's Star Wars replicas and BD Armory, and to do some more research. In fact, since my last post on this thread, I've found over 100 new candidates! But I digress. Now that I'm back, I decided to take my Minmus colonization plans into full effect, after a quick science excursion using one of the Zemyna-Minthe Station modules.

First I sent up a Minmus Delivery/Return Vessel (MDRV) transport named Montu, after one of my false positive planet candidates. The MDRV Montu I is a rather crude design, and I will be replacing it with a more advanced version once this initial Minmus supply run is done. Once Montu I was in orbit, I sent up four pieces of cargo: the core module, the storage module (for both ore and other random stuff), a Type I Base Connector (made from 2 1.25m inline cabins with two drones attached), and a Type 2 Base Connector (same thing as the Type 1, but with no drones). Quick sidenote about all these base connectors: they are meant to be picked up and moved around by these small drones. All of the base connectors have a small 0.625m docking port on the top to be picked up and connected to base modules. However, this is entirely specific to Minmus operations.

All of these four pieces of cargo were sent up on Titan I lifters, which use 2 large SRBs, two Skipper LF engines, and one Mainsail LF engine with a total of four max-size orange 2.5m LF tanks. The lifter is very efficient with this type of cargo...maybe too efficient. I always have the central 1st stage still running with about 30-40% fuel when I begin rendezvous with Montu I. This was a problem, because I would be leaving giant pieces of debris up in orbit. The first time this happened, I used the small cargo transport craft to ram into the 1st stage after delivering its cargo. As you may have guessed, it was very unsuccessful and just created a bigger mess. The second time I was in luck: the first stage was still connected after cargo delivery, so I was able to deorbit the whole thing. Third time was...not a charm. I was hoping to use the cargo transport to push the first stage out of orbit. Long story short: didn't work, and I had to smash both things together. The fourth time I gave up and left the debris in orbit. Now, you may be wonder "why didn't you just keep the first stage when delivering your cargo?". Well, the problem was that the cargo transport with the first stage still attached was hard to turn around for docking. I was lucky that second time - I happened to be coming in at just the right angle where not a whole lot of moving around was needed. It's easier and more efficient to deliver cargo without several extra tons of 40% dead weight.

Next I launched another MDRV, Sethlans I. It needed to carry an experiment module, an electricity module, and two Type 3 Base Connectors (half the size of the Type I's and 2's; a total of four Type 3's were brought up in two pairs, which can be detached and moved around independently with the drones). Process was the same as before: used Titan I lifters, docked with the MDRV, etc, etc. 

Once both Montu I and Sethlans I were loaded, it was time to head off to Minmus. One problem: Minmus was constantly in the wrong place. I had to wait over 50 Kerbal days before finally, the uncooperative little moon was in reach of a rather expensive maneuver. First went Montu I, then Sethlans I. Surprisingly, Sethlans I reached Minmus a few hours before Montu I, even though I made their orbits almost the same. Both ships were put into generally equatorial Low-Minmus Orbits.

Montu I was the first to deliver its cargo to the surface. I picked an area within Minmus' Greater Flats to land. Montu I came down at just about 4 m/s. Once landed, I first tried to detach the Type 2 connector with a transferred drone, but for some odd reason it began glitching out. Several quickloads later, I just decided to drop the main modules, then the base connectors, then move over a bit to set it all up. Mivie Kerman helped move around some of the base parts, mainly the core module, which (thankfully) had a Cupola capsule for some limited crew control. I eventually got the storage and core modules connected between the Type I Base Connector.

That's all I've done for now. Next time, I will deliver the rest of the cargo, set that up, collect some SCIENCE!, return it to Kerbin, and design some of the remaining cargo needed for the base.

[Zosma Procyon]

I almost had a successful test of my Eve Lifter, but the landing site was sh!t.

It isn't supposed to be going that way. And that 2.5m cargo container at the top...that's the 16 seat crew compartment.

[eberkain]

This was actually yesterday, but... 

[Zosma Procyon]

I also tested the ballute mod. And I greatly underestimated the size.

This rocket is over 100m tall.

[Starman4308]

Today was a better day. Lots of stuff designed, and two rocket launches.

The brilliant success was the launch of my first lunar orbiter. Omens were good, with the Moon almost directly above the launch.

The lunar injection was almost dead-on, meaning minimal correction on the hydrazine monopropellant thruster, leaving me around 700 m/sec for lunar insertion and lunar maneuvers. Almost all of the low-mass science has now been collected from lunar space, with just low orbit over the south pole remaining... which will be a job for a second copy of the mission.

 

After that on the itinerary was the first mass demonstration of the Soyuz-1 booster! Glorious new rocket rolled out to pad among triumphant traditional music! Upper stage powered by new staged-combustion S1.5400 engine with amazing specific impulse of 338 s^-1 in vacuum! First stage uses reliable workhorse RD-108 engine, with four boosters powered by its cousin RD-107 engine!

Behold the majesty of nearly 3.9 MN of thrust on the pad!

Glorious Soyuz rocket ascends!

Now watch as rocket gloriously... um...

INITIATE RANGE SAFETY PROTOCOLS IMMEDIATELY!

 

Incidentally, I think I accidentally almost-copied a real Molniya booster configuration. I wanted to use these wonderful new staged-combustion engines, and I wanted to do a proper Korolev cross. The primary differences are that I don't have access to those beautifully tapered Soyuz booster tanks, and I think the real Molniya configuration with the S1.5400 has another RD-108 stage above the first stage-and-a-half.

EDIT: Also, see the little white section on the top, in between the also-white interstage fairing and the upper avionics core? That's the entirety of the second-stage fuel tank. I wanted a 3-meter fairing with a >4 ton payload capacity, and the S1.5400 doesn't have a hugely long burn time, so that almost absurdly short upper stage tank is what I got.

Edited February 1, 2018 by Starman4308

[LordFerret]

8 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Eve is a Harsh mistress.

 

ME

...and Duna is her evil brother.

I just bopped in to post, so I'll have to read all the previous posts later.

 

Duna is proving to be a serious jinx as far as my rovers go. It's showing me just how poor my driving skills are... or rather, Trama's. Another rover has been trashed. Add to that, a seriously bad maneuver on a landing attempt has just now turned yet another rover (and its lander) to a huge debris field just west of the Duna base. I'm going to get fined by the Space Agency for parts littering. So now I've got time to kill. I still have 'the little rover that could' runabout parked at the base; Maybe I'll use it to push and gather the debris together while I wait for the next fleet of inbound ships.

[KerBlam]

My ongoing mission today, and for the next few days is to rescue and return all the Kerbals I have left stranded on the Mun in my career save. There's at least 7.