What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Ace in Space]

51 minutes ago, 0something0 said:

(How do I post images?)

Find the URL of the image itself (not the page it's on). How to do this varies by browser but generally if you right click it you should be able to copy its address or view its properties (which will contain its address). You can use the Insert Other Media button in the lower right to insert from the URL you just got. Or just paste directly into the post and if it's a valid image URL it'll automagically resolve itself.

 

Today I didn't do a whole lot. Just fuel runs for Onyx Station. It's funny how some tasks can be agonizingly tedious some days and relaxingly zen on others.

 

Also, saw this in the control center:

And to make things worse for this poor kerbal, Hairy is apparently a girl. I think her parents hated her.

I have not taken the contract, because frankly, I am not sure I want a kerbal named Hairy.

[qzgy]

Just now, Ace in Space said:

I have not taken the contract, because frankly, I am not sure I want a kerbal named Hairy.

DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!

I dare you.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Built a fully-stock Gyrocopter on a whim. Jeb was off somewhere, so Val got first dibs flying it around the KSC for a bit.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

28 minutes ago, Ace in Space said:

And to make things worse for this poor kerbal, Hairy is apparently a girl. I think her parents hated her.

wonder if she’s related to my Jencine...

Like @qzgy said, you have to go save Hairy! Maybe she can stay with

... the Hendersons. 

Seriously tho, might wanna put a strainer on the shower drain...

 

And speaking of Kerbal names, I got a contract to rescue one named Burrick...

...please someone tell me I’m not the only one to get the reference...

bonus points if you remember the phrase “farting themselves to death...”

Edited March 27, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[DunaRocketeer]

I've been flying around kerbin with my current fun-mobile ssto:

And catching asteroids using a more serious ship:

[Hotel26]

My buddy, First Lieutenant Dunry Kerman, spent yesterday evening doing "bump and grinds" on the Mun in a Hawk tug/lander configured with a fuel pod.  I took cover on the surface at a safe distance with a stopwatch and clipboard.  We stayed up all night while Dunry did a total of a dozen cycles up and down to/fro the Mun orbital fuel dump.

Best thing about this is that there is NO math. 

[Kebab Kerman]

I renamed this: https://kerbalx.com/KebabKerman/F47-455 and now if you change the numbers to the letters they look like you get the name. Makes it look like an actual name of a plane. Also, forgot to mention the thing is huge. Just make sure you're using 1.2.2 when using this.

[Leopard]

following the duna mission profile resulting in more casualties than acceptable (i.e. I ran out of Kerbals), have now chalked up the experience and restarted.

set the funds and science to 40%, thinking funds at 20% may be better though.

went from orbit on 2nd flight to actually having to work for it, have managed sub orbital on the six flight (had the tech earlier, just wanted some other missions first).

currently pootling about in a first tech node aeroplane bathing low altitude science missions for money and practice, even managed to land it without the parachutes.

 

What sort of difficulty settings are people using now? (used to just pick 'hard' but the option is gone)

[Kebab Kerman]

Does anybody else want this? 

 

[HalcyonSon]

On 3/3/2018 at 2:12 PM, eddiew said:

Almost made mach 2 on wheeslies.

Almost.

I don't know if it's even possible, but I do now know that you can get those little engines glowing if you push them  

I built a USAF C17 ripoff... really just a simple STOL cargo plane.  Goliaths on a Mk3 start getting toasty above Mach 1, and get VERY unhappy pushing that brick close to Mach 2.  So unhappy that the heat they generate will *poof* the wings.  If I manage to keep it sloooow, the stupid engines fall off the first time wheels hit the runway (even at 0.5 m/s sink rate).  It's a work in progress.

[Geonovast]

12 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Built a fully-stock Gyrocopter on a whim.

Was it a whim, or are you an avid xkcd reader?

[Kerbinchaser]

Not sure what I'm doing yet. I'll probably whip up a 1.4 stock save and see what I can do.

[Whirligig Girl]

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/87dtij/mod_idea_reversed_kerbol_system/

/u/darwinpatrick inspirede me to make a mod that reverses the solar system... but I think I'll let him finish it.

[HalcyonSon]

On 3/4/2018 at 5:20 AM, dangerhamster said:

Thanks to the base vehicle proving itself on Mun and Minmus only landings have been simulated so far. But a real test flight is planned soon which may turn into a mission. The DAVE is based on the proven Globetrotter and can operate under KSC control with adequate comms coverage. Once down it will be used to scout a suitable base location and then settle down to producing Snacks.

Is that Mk3 Cargo Bay tweakscaled?  That rover looks much larger than anything I've been able to squeeze in.

[Leopard]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Was it a whim, or are you an avid xkcd reader?

where are the flame throwers?

[HalcyonSon]

On 3/4/2018 at 7:42 AM, Castille7 said:

Welcome to the forum Kek-tus!

Almost in tears over here! 

They would have to fart out he window... them's some chilly buns!

[JadeOfMaar]

While waiting (and getting impatient  ) on Nertea to release his update to Cryogenic Engines featuring his new propellant ratios I figured last night that I would polish off my own... for the Wild Blue mods in Classic Stock mode.

For test engines I cloned the stock LV-N. deltaV numbers (though not important) were just right once I attached the DSEV huge sphere tank instead of this cylinder tank for PropLox (equivalent to Hydrolox).

 

And I had some trouble at first with KarLox (equivalent to Methalox). The tank ratio didn't line up with the input ratios into the engine. I blame one of the ratio numbers having 3 decimal places. For methalox engine references I looked at the "Liquid Methane" mod by @zekew11.

Zeke's mod uses CRP. What I'm working on does not.

Edited March 27, 2018 by JadeOfMaar

[eddiew]

4 hours ago, Leopard said:

What sort of difficulty settings are people using now? (used to just pick 'hard' but the option is gone)

If I was running with a stock game, I'd probably be around 20% science and 40% funds. It's easy to have a laughably huge excess off the latter, but at the same time you don't really want to be grubbing for money because that just results in repeated runs of tedious contracts (usually satellite launches). Low science with "enough" funds, on the other hand tends to nudge you outwards looking for the higher multipliers to be found further afield - although there can be an hump to overcome at the start, and you may want to begin your game with 100 science in the bank to get you over this. 

You can change the settings in your persistent.pfs save file any time you like, btw - it's just text. You can also undo research here if you feel like you've gone too far too fast and want a retcon. I tend to do this whenever I realise my game's got out of balance or I've unlocked a modded part that is way too powerful for the tech node it's in 

For a modded game with the Community Tech Tree and a ton of extra parts, I get more subtle. The patch linked at the top of my mission log thread scales the cost of each tier of the tree independently, heavily inflating back while leaving the front alone. With 20% science, this results in having a solid start and reasonably fast progression as far as low orbit and then your local moons (moons may vary per modpack), but after that you'll have to start working harder and smarter to unlock more nodes. Tapping out Duna should deliver unto you the tier with nuclear engines, assuming you hit 3-4 biomes. The same on Ike will get you about half of the next tier, so you're going to have to hit up Dres as well, unless you fancy grinding ... if you have a lot of high tech mods, e.g. Near Future, Space Y Heavy Lifters + Expanded, and Thor Tech, I'm not actually sure it's possible to get everything unlocked within the stock system. 

But to me that's excellent because it forces players to make meaningful choices! Pursuing fancy NF argon propulsion? You might not get to unlock big station parts... Chasing some TT atmospheric engines? You might have to forgo 10m rocketry... Although the dedicated can of course set up multiple labs and send the same data to each, thus generating infinite science for the cost of effort. It's never impossible to complete the tree, you just need to be creative.

And on that creative vein, because you tend to be starving for science in the mid game, you start thinking about things like orbital labs and extended, multi-landing missions, or rovers, or scout planes, all of which are fun and often-overlooked ways to explore planets  

All of this assuming you enjoy having something to chase in the tech tree   IMHO my patch is paced quite well for always delivering something new with each launch, rather than the stock tree where you can pretty much skip everything in the middle. You're going to see a lot of the middle tiers, rather than skipping them like you can with the stock tree and default income. 

...that turned into a really self-promotional piece and I apologise... hopefully someone will find my rantings and configs useful one day 

2 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

/u/darwinpatrick inspirede me to make a mod that reverses the solar system... but I think I'll let him finish it.

Weirdly amazing  

[Cavscout74]

I managed to snag the asteroid that appeared around Kerbin - only took 5 capture vehicles to get it into a nice flat, circular orbit at 1500km.  First one caught it around Mun & burned for all it was worth, which was only a bit over 200 m/s - but that resulted in a ~1500x8000km, 20 degree inclined orbit around Kerbin.   The second one was also in Mun orbit but never got close & didn't have the dV to be worth trying for an intercept, so I crashed it into Mun.  The next 3 got it flattened out & circularized.  I haven't researched mining yet, so all were self-destructed after their burns. 

First encounter:

Second vessel circularizing around Kerbin:

Accidentally switched to the lone asteroid while trying to switch vessels but got a nice view out of it:

[Zeiss Ikon]

17 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Built a fully-stock Gyrocopter on a whim. Jeb was off somewhere, so Val got first dibs flying it around the KSC for a bit.

 

Wow, cool.  Two questions -- do you have a means to pre-rotate (start the rotor before you begin your takeoff roll)?  And where is the craft file?

Re: prerotation, some higher-end autogyros have either a takeoff shaft from the main engine or a small auxiliary engine to spin up the rotor before takeoff -- in the extreme, this allows "jump" takeoffs, where the rotor is spun up with flat pitch, and then collective (to use the helicopter term) added to jump off the ground with zero ground roll.  The rotor is immediately disengaged from the prerotator after the jump, to avoid torque effects, but the flywheel effect of the rotor gives enough "air time" for the forward propulsion to gain speed, which then keeps the rotor spinning.  Even a very mild prerotation, however (even just the pilot reaching up and starting the rotor spinning by hand), shortens the takeoff run considerably.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Zeiss Ikon

[Triop]

Planted  a flag on the south pole of Kerbin in my MiG 21.

Took me forever, loved every minute of it.

*proper English: I flew my MiG 21 to the southpole of Kerbin and planted a flag.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Triop

[Ultimate Steve]

I am trying to transfer my RO stuff over to 1.2.2 (been using 1.1.3 for a long time). So far I have deleted many ships, the savefile size is down to 30MB from 40MB. I've been saving sentimental craft (first failed moon impactor, everything landed on the moon, that one stranded spacecraft that needed a rescue mission) but I think I might delete a few more.

This is Sapphire Station, the first space station ever built by the Notebook Space Program. It was like a very small version of MOL, which launched with a Mercury capsule on top instead of a Gemini. However, it required EVA transfer, and only had about 4.5 cubic meters of habitable volume, not counting the capsule which was not accessible from the main body of the station. For comparison, the Apollo capsule had around 6 cubic meters of habitable volume. It flew on one of two Gravity II rockets ever launched with its first crewmember. Its goal was to break the record for number of days spent in space.

Early on in the planning of the third space station, Avalon, both Sapphire and it's larger brother, Ruby, were going to be modules. However, due to the extreme inclination differences, the space tugs that would need to be launched for rendezvous would be heavier than the modules themselves and it turned out to not be worth it, especially considering that the modules would need to be extensively modified via KAS/KIS to be compatible with the station.

It was eventually leased to a private company which performed two missions to it with a rocket called Peregrine (miniature Ares I). Sigma 1 was the space tug you see on the right of the picture, designed to resupply the life support onboard. Sigma 2 was a crewed capsule with one crewmember. That mission went well. Sigma/Peregrine only flew once more on a failed attempt to create an artificial gravity system using a tether. There were no more missions to Sapphire Station.

There were plans to bring it back to Earth for museum display using a spaceship known as the Futuristic Advanced Large Landable Spaceplane (FALLS). This would have required a new iteration of Gravity, Gravity IC. This combination would have been called Gravity-FALLS (hehe) and would have resembled the space shuttle launched on top of a Falcon Heavy. However, this program was cancelled because adequate technology to protect it on reentry was not available.

So during the savefile pruning, I decided to de-orbit it.

The life support containers were the first things to burn up, separating Sigma 1 from the station. Then the hydrazine tank exploded sending RCS and thrusters everywhere, shortly followed by the probe cores on both chunks. Then went the docking ports. Finally, at about 67km the crew cabins burned up, followed a few seconds later by the solar panels (which are usually the first things to go).

 

[Weltenbrand]

a) Cobbled together a new station in orbit around Duna because station 1 wasn't at all compatible with CLS.

b) Sent part of the crew of station 1 on shore leave.

c) Tested the feasibility of a range of modules for ground stations.

[Mr. Peabody]

Shakedown trials of the newly re-built Endurance rover. We'll be back in action in no time!

[SuicidalInsanity]

2 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Wow, cool.  Two questions -- do you have a means to pre-rotate (start the rotor before you begin your takeoff roll)?  And where is the craft file?

No pre-rotation, but it spins up fairly fast. I experimented around with some low-thrust seperatrons on the rotor hub, but the way the rotor assembly is currently designed it would occasionally result in rotor disassembly/tailfin removal. The craft file can be grabbed from KerbalX.