What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Geonovast]

2 minutes ago, AngryKitty said:

Just needs a potted plant next to it.

Bonus points for petunias.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Geonovast

[AngryKitty]

43 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Just needs a potted plant next to it.

Bonus points for petunias.

Not following?

[Enceos]

Utilized low gravity and off-world construction to make a big tank for an orbital fuel depo. Spent an hour in the editor trying to make station arms for a double port docking. Seeing this giant docked at a station and being held from each side was really satisfying.

(click the image to zoom in)

Edited May 29, 2018 by Enceos

[Servo]

42 minutes ago, AngryKitty said:

Not following?

It's a reference to Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which features a whale falling from the sky next to a potted petunia. Bizarre book, that one is.

 

Today, I made some big planes, some small planes, and some in-the-middle planes. And one or two that were all three at once...

 

Honey, I shrunk the air wing!

[Angelo Kerman]

Today I released the first public alpha release of Kerbal Flying Saucers:

 

[AngryKitty]

4 minutes ago, Servo said:

It's a reference to Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which features a whale falling from the sky next to a potted petunia. Bizarre book, that one is.

 

Today, I made some big planes, some small planes, and some in-the-middle planes. And one or two that were all three at once...

 

Honey, I shrunk the air wing!

Oof. I need to re-read, it’s been decades. The BFS flew about as well as the whale did.

Love the mini jets. Poor Jeb...

[RizzoTheRat]

Continuing my adventures in KOS, I spent a while tweaking my vacuum landing script last night, adding in a correction/alignment burn 1/4 orbit before the landing point, it's now landing within 6 or 7 meters of the designated landing point on the Mun, even when it's 5 degrees of latitude away from the crafts initial orbit path.  It keeps a constant vertical velocity while braking the horizontal down to 0.1m/s, but to avoid terrain it's killing the horizontal velocity while still a km or so up, so it's still drifting 5 or 6 meters down range in the final descent phase.  So I reckon correcting for that should get me down to 1 or 2 meters accuracy.

 

6 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Just needs a potted plant next to it.

Bonus points for petunias.

Oh no, not again...

[Mark Kerbin]

Today was mostly a testing day for me. Had a few new payload to  LKO designs I needed to work on and worked on optimization for my computer. No exciting pictures unfortunately. 

[Hotel26]

First shot shows my Aquila lifter loaded up with 7 pairs of Hitchhiker cabins...  Ville Aquila!

Boost it into a random orbit...

...and then make a small city rain down on some habitable segment of the globe!

Find a nearby site for a regional airport and bring in a couple of Jeeps to provide service to the airport...  Commence flights via the nearest hub airport.  Then wait for the travelers to come! 

[How to make a small fortune in the airline business?  Start with a large fortune!]

Edited May 29, 2018 by Hotel26

[KerikBalm]

Well, today I finalized a design for a laythe sea-plane (which I may discard entirely :p ), and then designed an all stock-submarine to deploy from it.

I had previously made submarines using parts I modded myself (like electric fans, ballast tanks, liquid only propulsion), this time I used only stock parts.

First, the laythe I'm playing on is not stock... its in a 3x system, but I have really changed laythe's properties a lot. First I made it proportionately smaller (I didn't like a moon of a gas giant dwarfing Duna... that would be like Europa being bigger than Mars!). So with its proportionately smaller size (still slightly bigger than Duna), I lowered its gravity AND its atmospheric pressure (still a 8:6 ratio of Gs to Atms). Its got a surface gravity of ~0.36 G, and an atmospheric pressure of ~0.27 atmospheres (it abruptly goes to 1 atmosphere at -1 meters, so stock airbreathers work fine underwater). The level at which a craft floats in the water is not affected by gravity, so pushing with the thin atmosphere doesn't work so well, takeoff was a problem

I used a pair of vectors to lift the craft out of the water (it doesn't need to go to closed cycle on the rapiers, but I do it anyway to get to flying speed sooner:

I designed it with high engines and mk3 parts so that the parts that touch the water have high impact tolerance... I thought the parts inside the cargo bay would be protected, apparently... not so much. Flight tests with a dummy payload were fine, but loaded with the real deal sub, it kept breaking up, I had to use the vectors to come to a slower touchdown (for this reason, I may trash the design, and use the same STOVL design of my Rald transport). Also, while it slows down to a reasonable landing speed because the low gravity and low atmospheric pressure mostly cancel out, intertia is still inertia, and a heavy plane will take a long time to turn.

Anyway... on to the submarine, testing on Kerbin:

I think these smaller middle wheels would satisfy @Geonovast's clipping rules (the wheel itself doesn't clip, the suspension is inside the ore/ballast tank though... although I will note that the ballast tank isn't completely full, so there's that

Spoiler

decoupling the parachute rails, for testing on kerbin, I strapped SRBs to it and shot it into the sea near KSC:

This was an earlier stage, before adding wheels and science stuff

I really wish the shielded docking port could have its front node usable in the editor... I don't know if I want to just use a blunt unshielded port, or load a sub into an empty SSTO on the runway, to get it to orbit and eventually laythe.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2018 by KerikBalm

[Geonovast]

23 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I think these smaller middle wheels would satisfy @Geonovast's clipping rules (the wheel itself doesn't clip, the suspension is inside the ore/ballast tank though... although I will note that the ballast tank isn't completely full, so there's that

lol, sorry no.    For me, if it moves, it can't clip, that includes turning wheels and suspension.

24 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I really wish the shielded docking port could have its front node usable in the editor...

Ditto.  That drives me nuts.  There have been many times when I want it (or one of the inline ones) docked in the editor.

[KerikBalm]

I had posted that prematurely, didn't finish the story, but:

58 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

 if it moves, it can't clip, that includes turning wheels and suspension.

Well, I don't want it to move... the middle wheel pair doesn't turn, and I put the suspension strenght as high as possible, I don't want it to have any suspension (also, since the ore tank is not full, one can argue that there is empty in the container that the suspension can use). I could also use the making history wheels which are even smaller, but I wanted the craft to be unambiguously stock/vanilla.

Unfortunately, we can't lock suspension anymore since the Unity 1.1 update. It doesn't really need a suspension, all it needs to do is get in and out of the cargobay.

Maybe I don't even need the middle wheel pair, I'll have to check if it still works without it

Anyway, to complete the summary of the seployable stock submarine on non-stock laythe:

After testing a suitable plane and submarine on kerbin, I went for the laythe test:

Entry, descent, and splashdown of the plane and sub

Spoiler

Yes, the wings clip at the root (but not the tip), but I was tired of always doing the 4x big-S delta wings (which aren't really modular like the normal delta wings.. but meh, close enough for me), but multiple FAT-455 wings really don't go well together. I could easily have staggered them to avoid the clipping, but this looked better... anyway... deploying the sub:

Spoiler

and its floating free, ready to dive:

Spoiler

I forget if its just scatterer, but it gets dark down deep, I should have brought some lights:

I first reached the bottom going too fast, broke the docking port and the probe core, and thus had to reload, I slowed down next time... I may have to add a light to this thing to see the bottom.

I really love scatterer:

I made it to the bottom safely this time, but there's nothing to see at all:

So... time to go up:

Spoiler

Not far from the ship now:

Something lurks beneath the waters...

I've docked rovers on the ground, I've docked craft up in space, but docking a sub was going to be a first, I wish there were some small maneuvering thrusters to act like RCS... at least there's reaction wheels (although I only have the pod wheels)

Spoiler

So I was behind the plane in that last image, here I've moved in front of it... time to line up to the ramp:

Everything was looking good...

and then some glitch happened, I think I remember explosions, but my screen was flickering and stuff looked... weird...

So I did a quick load, and this time I jettisoned all the ore (I would like to be able to keep it, so that I could refill the LF tanks and putter around the same area before taking off again, although with ~45 minutes of fuel at full throttle, 1 tank should give me about a 20km range before needing to heat back). With all the ore gone and the sub now a bouyant boat, it was easy to redock:

Then I took the whole thing back up to orbit (minus the ore)

Unlike almost everywhere else in my modded system, it actually takes less dV to get to orbit of laythe/orbital velocity is lower, because I've scaled down Laythe's gravity and atmosphere (although atmosphere height was increased) prior to applying the 3x system rescale.

^ note that its not in orbit yet... orbital velocity here is around 100 m/s lower than stock laythe, and its a nice change of pace from 3x kerbin and its 4,100 m/s orbital velocity in LKO

[cy4n]

tfw you build your first Duna mission and you realise you forgot to add parachutes halfway through the transfer burn

https://imgur.com/a/MQd5sfL

Edited May 29, 2018 by Osmium

[DeltaDizzy]

3 minutes ago, Osmium said:

tfw you build your first Duna mission and you realise you forgot to add parachutes halfway through the transfer burn

Album MQd5sfL will appear when post is submitted

 

that sucks

[mystifeid]

Mirwise thought moholing sounded  like fun. Specifically, what is at the bottom of the mohole.

A landing at the north pole and return to equatorial orbit sounded dicey so the Moho rover met Mirwise half-way.

200 odd kilometers - no problem.

Big mistake.

200km turns into 600.

The rover handles it.

And finally reaches the Mohole.

Mirwise detaches the moholer

Which turns out to be tricky to land in the pointy end.

So, what's at the bottom of the Mohole?

The South Pole!! That's what.

Time to go.

Back on top

On to the next adventure...

Edited May 29, 2018 by mystifeid

[Cavscout74]

I decided to redesign my Pumera SSTO with VTOL capability in Mun-gravity.  So I removed the passenger cabin & stuck some VTOL engines on it & smashed is into the surface of Mun at 100+ m/s after discovering that eye-balling the locations of the VTOL engines was a bad idea.  Then I went back to the SPH, relocated the VTOL engines while paying attention to CoM.  Stuck a crew of freshly rescued kerbonauts on board & headed to orbit.  After a quick refueling in LKO, it was off to Mun for science (only recently unlocked the gravioli detector) & a quick flag planting, then returned to the desert airstrip - which was my first landing there since it was added. 

Climbing out of KSC:

In orbit, counting down to maneuver to fuel depot.  I since its meant for Kerbin SoI only, I removed the RTG from the original Pumera & added a pair of solar panels.

Retrograde burn around Mun:

Flag planting for my new kerbonauts:

20 km over the desert.  I reentered too soon, & flew ~ 1/4 circumference around Kerbin to get to the desert strip.  At 1500-1600 m/s.  The cockpit was still hot after landing, & Kerbals that EVA'd on the ground were almost hot enough to poof

Descent to landing:

Home, sweet home.  First landing at the desert strip.  Jeb made the first take off, but he balled up that plane next to the desert temple

 

 

[RealKerbal3x]

Screwed around with towing vessels with KAS and attempted to install the Para-Sci atmosphere pack. I know that I need to install the latest version of EVE but I'm not sure where to put the Para-Sci config.

[Stewcumber]

Standard thing for me - haven't played in ages so I fired up a new career mode. Soon I was putting this guy, Jimbob, to guard Kerbin as my scarecrow. Or does he just want to give aliens a big hug?

Now I am in a bit of a rut in the career I need to unlock a new science generating object.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2018 by Stewcumber

[CobaltShock]

Ok, I was actually able to play today (not enough for a chapter! Just a singular mission) in my mission reports save. Had some time to unwind before studying. Will not spoil anything, but here's 2 photos

Yeah.. browsing through mission reports has gotten be really tempted to play.. 

Edited May 29, 2018 by Steeeeve

[RocketScientist]

On 5/27/2018 at 8:41 PM, Drakenex said:

Skylab's Re-boost Mission

 

 

 

 

 

 

More here

 

 

What did you use for the arm?

Edited May 29, 2018 by RocketScientist

[Zosma Procyon]

I made a NERV powered mobile base that I'm going to send to Moho. I couldn't get a mobile base on electric wheels to hold together, they kept shaking apart even with no autostructed parts besides the wheels, so I'll do this. It'll do half a Moho gravity acceleration in a vacuum, so it should be able to climb any mountain. To make it easier to lift, it'll launch with empty fuel tanks. Electrical power is provided by dozens of NUKs hidden inside. I'm going to send a slightly smaller version of this model mobile base out to Eeloo in a hundred in game days.

[DeltaDizzy]

6 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Screwed around with towing vessels with KAS and attempted to install the Para-Sci atmosphere pack. I know that I need to install the latest version of EVE but I'm not sure where to put the Para-Sci config.

anywhere in the Gamedata folder should work. 

[KerikBalm]

5 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

I made a NERV powered mobile base that I'm going to send to Moho ... Electrical power is provided by dozens of NUKs hidden inside

but..... its Moho.... a solar power provides so much power there, wouldn't it be much more mass efficient and lower part count to just have some battery capacity and a gigantor or two?

[BadOaks]

On 5/28/2018 at 7:56 PM, Enceos said:

Utilized low gravity and off-world construction to make a big tank for an orbital fuel depo. Spent an hour in the editor trying to make station arms for a double port docking. Seeing this giant docked at a station and being held from each side was really satisfying.

(click the image to zoom in)

That's such a cool base! What mod are those landing pads from and what do they do?

[Enceos]

@BadOaks The base is even bigger now, I got rid of smaller pads and built a big one for heavy landers. Here I got a screenshot of one landing on that pad.

The landing pads are from my Asphalt Tiles mod, they are welded together to make one part and I added a couple of modules to the config file, one is ExTarget from Extraplanetary Launchpads which allows me to target a pad and the marker will be right in the center of the pad, makes it much easier to land precisely. Another module is from MKS by Roverdude, USI_InertialDampener, it gets the pads to stick to the ground and prevents sliding.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Enceos