What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, Triop said:

38.9 Celsius is too much for me...

Greetings from Holland.

Yeah, it's pretty annoying when it's hot as this. It used to be that hot on Summer in Manaus, where I used to live. At midnight.  At noon, we got usually 45 to 50º C.  

[Triop]

1 minute ago, Lisias said:

Yeah, it's pretty annoying when it's hot as this. It used to be that hot on Summer in Manaus, where I used to live. At midnight.  At noon, we got usually 45 to 50º C.  

Temps like that would kill me...

There is no wind at the moment and tomorrow it's going to be even hotter.

I think my thermometer will go up to 42 degrees.

Tomorrow I'll send a Kerbal on a survey mission to confirm this.

Stay cool, wear sunglasses !

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, Triop said:

Temps like that would kill me...

The temperature is not the worst. The high humidity is. Hot and humid, man… You would sit on the ground and cry if you could (you can fry an egg on the pavement on the peak of the day).

(

(cut the sound or get the kids out of the room - profanity alert!  )

[Triop]

3 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The temperature is not the worst. The high humidity is. Hot and humid, man… You would sit on the ground and cry if you could (you can fry an egg on the pavement on the peak of the day).

 

Yeah, we are not used to this, dog owners who walked their dogs on asfalt are saying there dogs burned there feet.

I will spare you the graphic material...

Have a cool picture:

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, Triop said:

38.9 Celsius is too much for me...

 Greetings from Holland.

 My sympathies. I grew up in a place where it once got so hot they had to shut down the international airport cuz the airliner manuals didn’t go that high. 

KSP would be a bit more interesting if it simulated density altitude like that. 

Today I was dying cuz it hit 90. C or F doesn’t matter, feels about the same to me. 

Today in KSP I did... absolutely nothing.  Cuz I’m still sitting here waiting on my ferry at 11:30 at night. 

I hate summer. 

[Cyrious]

Update, no images this time: The Mun hardware naturally all arrived (twas a mess of orbits), and I've begun the process of docking the payloads to the station one by one. 2 Cyclotrons and 2 Thinker labs are already attached, and once i start the game up tomorrow I intend on using some of the delivered propellant to lower the station's orbit a bit.

Still havent figured out what I'm gonna do for the propellant reserve module though. Last one I designed ended up being a 90 ton (dry) flat mass of octo girder tanks, procedural tanks, a pair of orange tanks, 5000 units of monoprop storage, solar arrays, batteries, and various converter devices. Getting it up to orbit was... interesting.

[Triop]

4 minutes ago, Cyrious said:

Getting it up to orbit was... interesting.

You must be that "Spock" kind-a-guy.

[JadeOfMaar]

I polished off this Skylon-alike and made my mod pre-release-ready, which provides the aftermarket parts. The craft works in 2.5x, hauling 30 tons to about 100km, but (on suggestion) I dropped the atmosphere height from 90km to 70km because 70km is realistic™ at 3.2x. and I am quite fine with that.

Also this is the first time I'm experienced 2.5x stock system. I'm usually "GPP or Bust!" when I take the planet system seriously.

 

Edited July 27, 2018 by JadeOfMaar

[Atkara]

Not much this last couple of weeks, as I've been playing mostly other games. However, I did find some time to come up with a new surface miner:

It's shorter than what I currently use, which makes touchdowns more comfortable -even though I haven't had any of my old miners tip over so far.

Given how much cramped everything is, I first tested with radiator panels only, which didn't turn out well. Drills & ISRU overheated and shut down (yeah, silly me). So I went for a hybrid model. The ISRU (inside the adapter) will be cooled by 4 radiators, with a pair of thermal control systems taking over the rest, including the drills. Simulations ran for the worst conditions possible (Moho) show that temperatures will be kept in check.

Power is provided by a combination of 4 gigantors and 2 fuel cell arrays. I also put 4 RTGs in the mix (hence the cost) which I don't really need, but hey, why not? It's capabilities are pretty much the same with what I currently use so, if I decide to go ahead and deploy it, it's ready.

I also thought of something that could be used as a boat on Laythe:

For this, I finished gliding tests. Getting it to splashdown safely will be somewhat tricky, but definitely doable. All that remains, is testing it's behavior during atmospheric interface. The undercarriage will be kept in place, as I will need to get it out of the water, in order to refuel it and just beaching it won't do.

Update: Atmospheric interface test on the boat completed. Passed with flying colors, all the way to splashdown.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Atkara

[Stunkfish]

On 7/26/2018 at 5:37 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Hey @Stunkfish, to get Imgur links to work here, you have to use the full link with file extension (.png). Easiest way is usually to just right click + copy image link from your Imgur page, then just paste here and the pic should come right up. Looking forward to seeing what you’ve done. 

Hey @CatastrophicFailure , thx a lot! Was wondering about that
pics are in the post now

[MR L A]

12 hours ago, Randox said:

my first 3 stages having a TWR of 1.1

THREE stages to get to orbit??? or 3 to get the base landed??

[RealKerbal3x]

8 hours ago, Triop said:

I did nothing today because of this guy:

38.9 Celsius is too much for me...

Greetings from Holland.

It's SO hot, even over here in the UK where it usually rains all through summer.

[Randox]

2 hours ago, MR L A said:

THREE stages to get to orbit??? or 3 to get the base landed??

• First Stage + LFO Boosters + SRF Boosters (not mentioned in post. They were half full to get under the weight limit, and gave me a TWR of 1.3, which I misremembered as 1.1)
• First Stage + LFO Boosters
• First Stage
• Orbit was finalized by the orbital engines, which are listed as the fourth stage.

So it's a two stage rocket, as such (launch and payload), but it's listed as 4. Here it is with the fairing removed (so that will throw the numbers off a tad):

Spoiler

Looking at those numbers now, I think establishing an orbit took about 4,100 dV. Don't launch 1.1 TWR rockets kids!

Edited July 27, 2018 by Randox
Corrected Errors

[Stunkfish]

On my way to complete the tech tree

Well....and learned to pull in solar panels before EVAing, destroyed one set of them due to bad EVA-backpack skills

[kurgut]

Finally, after years waiting, I've a new computer allowing scatterer and all good visual stuff working good. So for the occasion (also RP-1 recently udapted) I'm starting a new RSS/RO/RP-1 career (not principia: few bugs, and waiting to a better mechjeb integration). As always, starting with a bunch of sounding rockets:

Wac: max apoapsis: 96 km. First stage with booster not seen in pic

Xaerobee: using the upgraded aerobee engine in XARS configuration. Same as before, but with max Ap around 225 km. I'm also using it for sounding rockets contracts: it can bring a 20 SR payload to space quite easely. Here just passing the karman line:

And finally, first recovered rocket, the Xaerobee-Kombak using a modified xaerobee. Scientific payload is 2 biological samples. Ap around 120 km:

Ditch the fairings

more Kombak:

Spoiler

Separation of the return stage. Chute aaarmed.

And back. Landing in Cap Canaveral city

 

Edited July 27, 2018 by kurgut

[Cavscout74]

Haven't had too much big occur the last few days in my career.  The large gap in transfer windows has allowed me to nearly finish my Minmus station.  My first Eve probes arrives last night & I successfully put a lander probe on the surface.  Eve looks so much better wtih EVE

I also built a new rocket-glider without SXT mod to investigate the polar crash site.  This one doesn't fly nearly as nicely, but it worked.

Gliding to land on the ice sheet.  These stubby wings do not make for  a great glider

Finally this morning, Jeb took up an old fighter design I haven't flown in a while & went to check out the old space center.  I forgot how quick this design goes - >950 m/s with afterburners at ~1000m altitude.  I'm not sure exactly how fast it could go - I shut down the afterburners when the engines started to overheat.  The landing gear in 1.4.4 are definitely bouncier than 1.4.3 or earlier.  I had to play with the spring & damper settings to do take off safely, let alone actually land.  Last time I flew this, I had no take-off or landing issues.

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

seriously.

Maybe this is what I need. Another engine in the tail to balance thrust, hmm... 

[Randox]

Code Charlie Foxtrot - You Will Not Get To Space Today

Not a huge amount of progress made today. I need moar science to do the things I want to do, including the things I would be doing to get more science. So basically, the space program is in a standoff with linear time.

Finally accepting that, in order to get science, we might have to visit new places, it was decided to send a couple Kerbals out to Minmus to grab some more quick science. It didn't even seem hard to do; we just took the overbuilt Mun Lander, slapped some more science gear to it (i.e. made it taller and less stable), hired our first new recruit (to reset the science) and threw it on the launch pad. I even took a bunch of pretty pictures, which I will now use as a story aide:

I'm So Pretty!

The rocket was a bit slow off the mark, but nothing Jeb and Zeltop couldn't handle. After all, this was basically the same rocket our program had launched twice already, without incident. Except a bit longer, and a bit heavier...

See, because the rocket has a pretty low TWR - less than 1.5 for much of the ascent - it needs to loft the gravity turn a bit. It needs to fly a bit high, get out of the atmosphere a little faster. This is doubly true given that the ascent stage isn't quite enough to put the rocket in orbit, and without running the gravity turn high, the fairing would end up being opened too low in the atmosphere. Like this:

Pictured: Not Plan A (30 km ASL @ 1,300 m/s)

The rocket ended up dipping too low in the gravity turn, and the ascent stage ran out of gas at around ~1300 m/s at only 30km. Way too fast; way too low. Ground control ran the numbers and confirmed the rocket was able to hold at 30 seconds from apoapsis, but within seconds of losing the fairing the heat alarms had started to sound. With a vertical speed of only 50 m/s, Jeb knew the lander stage riding on the nose would disintegrate long before they ever made it to orbit. Summoning all his skills as a pilot, he valiantly raised the nose to boost the ascent rate. What a guy!

Pictured: Totally Controlled Pitch Up Maneuver to Boost Climb Rate and not a Code Charlie Foxtrot

That lasted for about 5 seconds before the whole craft went cheeks over teakettle. Now flying mostly sideways through the air, plus backwards, at substantial speed, the entire control console lit up like a Christmas Tree with heat warnings. Jeb tried to use tactical bursts of thrust from the main engine to help the SAS system regain control, but it was no use. With the very real possibility that the parachutes might burn off, Jeb had to cut the lander loose. Without the lander, the command pod needed to go retrograde to shield the parachutes, so Jeb released the main engine too:

Launch Aborted!

While the total loss of this ship would certainly be a blow to the space program, Jeb and Zeltop managed to seperate from their stricken ship safely. The command pod safely spun into a retrograde position, and after a long wait for the atmosphere to do its thing, the parachutes were deployed.

Don't Know What We're Going to Land On, But We Know We'll Land on it Safely

Jeb and Zeltop were perhaps a little pale when they were picked up, but a few snacks cheered them up right quick. Zeltop was informed that, with all the other astronauts currently deployed on Mun, she didn't need to worry about missing the next flight. Her and Jeb would be taking another go at this whole Minmus thing just as soon as soon as a new rocket could be built. Yay!

Edited July 28, 2018 by Randox

[SpacePigeon]

Today, I recreated a wiggle plane which caused the universe to mostly disappear. 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 28, 2018 by SpacePigeon

[katateochi]

I sort of accidentally made a SSTO space station today. I decided I needed a fuel station in LKO and that I wouldn't spend much time on it, just a quick, low part count thing.  yeah....I'm incapable of low part count stations, or making things quickly. So an hour or so later I'd made a ~120 part station (fuel, accommodation, life support, pretty lights, etc) which I was quite pleased with, aesthetically any way.
So far I'd not given any thought as to how I'd launch it, but it was just about 100tons empty so I figured a 2 or 3 stage heavy lifter would be needed. But then I thought, just for giggles, what if I just strap some engines to it and use it's own fuel tanks. So I bolted 6 mainsails and 4 fins to the bottom, glued a nose cone to the top (gotta do things properly right) and launched. I was just expecting a crash and some nice explosions, so a few minutes later to find myself at the 150km orbit that I was wanting to put it on with just 65m/s dV spare I was rather shocked.

Sometimes I worry that KSP is getting to realistic and that insane things don't work anymore.  And then something like this just works

Not the easiest thing to control, kept wanting to spin and trying to adjust the roll only made it worse, so I just let it spin and just focused on keeping the navbal marker lined up.
And here we are in orbit

[Cyrious]

Update on the Station Science hardware: Mun station has all hardware docked and online. Cyclotrons going full bore pull about 360EC/s. The solar arrays combined deliver nearly 1000 EC/s, and scattered across the station is almost 43K EC in battery capacity. I'm not running out of power any time soon thats for sure.

Now that the Mun objective is done (ignoring the massive centrifuges and the stabilization bar for them later) I get to run out to Minmus and repeat the feat with 4 more cyclotrons and a Zoo lab for the Minmus station.

[Atkara]

9 hours ago, Randox said:

See, because the rocket has a pretty low TWR - less than 1.5 for much of the ascent - it needs to loft the gravity turn a bit. It needs to fly a bit high, get out of the atmosphere a little faster. This is doubly true given that the ascent stage isn't quite enough to put the rocket in orbit, and without running the gravity turn high, the fairing would end up being opened too low in the atmosphere.

I do a lot of 1.5 TWR launches, with my upper stages often pushing no more than 0.9 -although I shouldn't call them "upper", since they are my rhino powered core stages, really.

Anyway, my usual launch profile is as following:

• Gravity turn starts at about 1000m alt, aiming for 3.5km alt & 75 degrees angle.
• Then, I engage prograde follow, aiming for 15km & ~40-35 degrees (throttle adjustments may be necessary). At this point, I disengage prograde follow, to avoid incidents like what you described.
• When the navball switches to orbit mode, I manually dive back into prograde and lock prograde follow again.
• Engine cutoff comes at slightly above the target altitude. This is done to account for drag losses, as there will be some, even on prograde follow.
• Circularize at apoapsis.

Give it a try

[MR L A]

1 hour ago, Atkara said:

I do a lot of 1.5 TWR launches,

Same, though I think ALL of mine are 1.5 or lower. My kerbals have an easy G experience.

[Randox]

1 hour ago, Atkara said:

I do a lot of 1.5 TWR launches, with my upper stages often pushing no more than 0.9 -although I shouldn't call them "upper", since they are my rhino powered core stages, really.

Anyway, my usual launch profile is as following:

• Gravity turn starts at about 1000m alt, aiming for 3.5km alt & 75 degrees angle.
• Then, I engage prograde follow, aiming for 15km & ~40-35 degrees (throttle adjustments may be necessary). At this point, I disengage prograde follow, to avoid incidents like what you described.
• When the navball switches to orbit mode, I manually dive back into prograde and lock prograde follow again.
• Engine cutoff comes at slightly above the target altitude. This is done to account for drag losses, as there will be some, even on prograde follow.
• Circularize at apoapsis.

Give it a try

That might work better for some of these low thrust designs.

My sandbox career ships are mostly centered around 2.3 launch TWR, and my gravity turn habits are certainly based largely on that experience. I've been coping alright with these less powerful rockets, but I've not nailed the launch procedure yet. Without a consistent launch regime for lower thrust rockets, I am relying on my skill as a pilot to cope. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong that time. I know I had to hold attitude before 10km to pause the turn, and that I was meeting my 50 seconds to apoapsis shortly after, but I think I neglected to do a sanity check on my vertical speed. Basically, I was checking off the usual boxes, and ignoring other signs for which I don't have specific criteria that something had gone wrong with my ascent profile (I expect I made too large an initial turn).

I need a mod for black box data  (I think I saw one like that too)

[MR L A]

1 hour ago, Randox said:

That might work better for some of these low thrust designs.

My sandbox career ships are mostly centered around 2.3 launch TWR

That's a very very high TWR and 1.5 isn't really a low TWR... it's quite normal. The below thread is still relevant for 1.4.x