What did you do in KSP1 today?

[AngrybobH]

9 hours ago, Atkara said:

I don't think it's 1.4.x specific. I recall seeing them being like that in 1.3.x too.

 

3 hours ago, MR L A said:

They've been like this for as long as I can remember =/

I guess I never noticed but, now that I have it kind of bothers me.

[MR L A]

42 minutes ago, AngrybobH said:

I guess I never noticed but, now that I have it kind of bothers me.

yeah it bothers the heck out of me too

[anoldtincan]

I was vacationing for a week but got back to it today.

Started building my communications network, a first for me, since I haven't played a version that included it until now. I'm planning on a six-sat constellation with four equatorial and two polar sats, in 90x8.5k HEO's. Got the first two in position today, which was somewhat challenging without ground links, passive probe control, and maneuver nodes.

To make some money I picked up quick survey contracts and took the Mongoose out for another flight, netting 100k funds and allowing KSC upgrades to commence.

Finally did some simulations with the Mongoose, trying to test EVA chutes...but that is not a feature in 1.3.1, but thankfully, there's a mod for that. I'm sure Valentina is a bit shaken at the prospect of skydiving-sans-parachute, but that shouldn't be the case anymore.

Edited August 4, 2018 by anoldtincan
Formatting

[Angelo Kerman]

Today I set up the sound and visual effects for my WB-25 "Neap-tide" aquatic engine:

[Triop]

Stealing fuel from a disabled . . .Twice

Edited August 5, 2018 by Triop

[Billanater1]

Today i downloaded the Launchers pack and was messing around with Falcon 1 & 9.

[blorgon]

8 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Nice work! I like the precision! Out of curiosity, does it aim for a specific geographic coordinate next to the flag that it lands on, or does it target the flag itself and land close to it? Either way it's cool.  

Anyways, I might have the guidance logic behaving now.

I'm aiming for the specific geoposition.

You using a PID to land the boosters?

Edited August 5, 2018 by blorgon

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

"I really hate that man."

^{Not really, Malcolm is awesome}

My guidance logic worked until I tried launching to a 60 degree inclination. Then the wibbly wobbly steering came back.

11 minutes ago, blorgon said:

I'm aiming for the specific geoposition.

You using a PID to land the boosters?

Indeed I am using a PID for the steering of the boosters. The throttle for the final landing burn is just controlled by simple acceleration equations though.

Edited August 5, 2018 by EpicSpaceTroll139
OCD

[-M-TheDoctor]

Working on an SSTO space plane. I've played this game for two years off and on now, and I've never been able to make a successful SSTO. Well today..... Was no different...

... MacFrey and James are fishing while waiting for their tow back to KSC... They did make it to space (79km), but couldn't circularize their orbit. Not enough dV to make the final burn...

Edited August 5, 2018 by -M-TheDoctor

[EvenFlow]

You technically shouldn't be making boats fly but engineering stereotypes are not telling me how to live my life for sure, pfsh.
 

 

[GDJ]

Flew my CF-104 from the desert base to the Pyramids, landed, selfie pictured, then flew to KSC.

[Hotel26]

Ever see the movie Pushing Tin[*]...?

Long story of a 48-hour shift this weekend, "pushing tin", dragging down one "shrimp boat" after another from KAC until the "big picture" turned into a continuous blur; anyway: meet DSRN-Omega-Methuselah:

Methuselah is the ancient god of Overkill.

To salvage something out of the weekend, I took a contract to put 12x deep space relays into the 25Gm band around the sun, one every 59.3 days...  don't ask me why but it's lucrative and money talks.

DSRN is a fairly light-weight Deep Space Relay Network.  The Omega drive behind it is a fairly massive 69 tons.  (Also overkill.)  I wanted the whole thing up fast and didn't want all the maneuvering to orbit, jockey and refuel the deal.  Enter, Methuselah.  It felt oh so good to be lazy...

* John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton; surprisingly great, great movie

Edited August 5, 2018 by Hotel26

[DJWyre]

Apparently this qualifies as a 'Space Station'.

 

 

I feel dirty....

Edited August 5, 2018 by DJWyre

[RoboRay]

After dabbling in the Real Solar System using SMURFF for a while, I finally went all-in with Realism Overhaul and am running my first RP0 campaign.  And, after almost a decade of sounding rockets, manned suborbitals in rocket planes, and much R&D... it's time to put up my first satellite!

The two first stage boosters are powered by single RD-103Ms and the first stage core sustainers are two more RD-103Ms.  Second stage is equipped with a pair of AJ-10-37s.  Third stage has a single AJ-10-37.  Fourth stage uses a pair of XASR-1s.  Fifth stage is a single XASR-1.  Sixth stage is a solid-fuel Aerojet X103C10.

Man, things get complicated when engines tend to fail or blow up if you exceed their maximum rated burn-time!

This wasn't designed to be an orbital launch vehicle... it grew into it.  The little Aerobee upper stages began life as sounding rockets.  Then I put them atop a single RD-100 for more altitude.  The lower stage grew into the twin RD-103, and the AJ-10s were inserted in the middle.  Then I realized how close I was to being able orbit a tiny probe with what I had, and added the pair of RD-103 boosters.

1205x5715 km orbit!  Not bad for a first attempt.*  I didn't even need the SRB kicker on the probe...  I was in about a 160x1175 km orbit after the final liquid stage was done.

*Or, the first attempt without any engine failures.  I lost an RD-103 on my first attempt, an AJ-10 on my next two attempts, and an XASR-1 on my last failed attempt...  Damn you, TestFlight!

All stages had sufficient avionics for positive control throughout the flight, except for the kicker.  I had to make sure to save enough peroxide for the final liquid stage to orient itself on prograde via RCS after coasting to apogee, before spinning it up to spin-stabilize the kicker.

Edited August 6, 2018 by RoboRay

[Triop]

Getting ready for a survey mission to Woomerang.

Fully refueled standing by on Dessert Airfield.

Taxiing to runway.

Edited August 5, 2018 by Triop

[Zeiss Ikon]

1 hour ago, RoboRay said:

I lost an RD-103 on my first attempt, an AJ-10 on my next two attempts, and an XASR-1 on my last failed attempt...  Damn you, TestFlight!

I've been slowly learning an important truth in RO: the more engines you have, the greater the likelihood one will fail (and the longer it'll take to build, reducing the likelihood of being able to make a second attempt on a contract).

My first orbital rocket in RO used seven RD-103 (no M), boosting a single RD-103 second stage, then a pair of AJ10-27 uppers.  It took six tries in sandbox to get one launch in which all ten engines ignited and burned their full duration -- and in career, I had enough failures to have the contract expire (twice in a row!) and sink the program. In my second career (with build time settings changed -- reached orbit in two years), I had one that was the classic Redstone (the A-6 engine running on Ethanol 90, not the Hydyne A-7) and an AJ10-37 second stage, with the three clusters of Baby Sergeants pushing an Explorer I (to around 45,000 km apogee on the first try).  My third one (Baba Yaga) had an RD-103 core, two (shorter burn) RD-103 boosters, an RD-103 second stage, and an AJ10-37 upper.  It made orbit, it made polar orbit -- and then I had four failures in a row trying to launch to a sun-synchronous, and the program was bankrupt.

In my current career, Take Five (hard mode), I'm in late 1958 and haven't yet attempted orbit: waiting for the LR-79 and LR-105, which along with the AJ10-37 or AJ10-42 can pretty readily put a Sputnik into orbit, or an Explorer well beyond LEO.  Only problem is, I've reached a point where (with both the 1956-1957 liquid and 1956-1957 solid engines in progress) I have to keep grinding sounding rocket missions to keep the lights on, launch an occasional crewed suborbital to keep the astronauts from retiring (Jeb's dead and Bill retired, but Val and Bob are still in it along with pilot Lagergard and Engineer Maufield -- haven't hired more yet, as the real crewed program is a ways off yet), and hope I don't have another string of failures.

[RoboRay]

10 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

I've been slowly learning an important truth in RO: the more engines you have, the greater the likelihood one will fail (and the longer it'll take to build, reducing the likelihood of being able to make a second attempt on a contract).

Absolutely.  Fewer engines is definitely safer when probability comes knocking.

I just lost thrust on an another RD-103M going for polar orbit.  The bad engine held together, though, and I was still able to hold it on course and crawl into low orbit (two contracts for the price of one... first polar orbit and first solar powered satellite!  Also brought along a lot more science gear to gather as much LEO data as I can transmit back.)

 I'm also planning to go for the LR-79 and LR-105 for my next rocket, for lunar probes and manned orbitals.

Edited August 5, 2018 by RoboRay

[Zeiss Ikon]

3 minutes ago, RoboRay said:

 I'm also planning to go for the LR-79 and LR-105 for my next rocket, for lunar probes and manned orbitals.

America's first crewed orbital launches (Atlas) used an LR-79 with a pair of LR-89 that were dropped partway up -- the LR-89 being the sea level optimized version of the LR-79.  I don't know that a single LR-79 can lift a Mercury capsule and enough upper stage dV to get it to orbit -- and a cluster of them is carrying too much weight.  Shorter-burn boosters are likely the better solution, as they were in 1962.  If you don't have the Atlas decoupler, you could (at somewhat higher cost) use side boosters.  Worth noting that Nathan Kell (in his Rusty RP-1 series on YouTube) launched a lot of LR-79 sounding  missions before attempting orbit and Lunar flyby/impact with them.  Having lots and lots of flight data is a good thing -- doesn't eliminate failures, but it cuts them down to a minimum.

[Triop]

Ready to roll

[RoboRay]

The LR-89s have about 10% more thrust than the LR-79s and the Isp is about the same (the 79 is just a second or two higher).  My understanding from reading various RO/RP0 posts was that the LR-79 got better over the time and the LR-89 didn't as much.  I haven't quite gotten to point of buying one and starting to R&D it, but if I can get by with investing in just one of two such similar motors, my preference is for the one with more to offer in the long-term.  We'll see how it goes. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by RoboRay

[Triop]

I'm done . . .

[ARS]

I built a small Surveyor Truck. Great for collecting science and doing experiments on different biome

It's equipped with internal antenna, RTGs, solar panels, fuel cells, liquid fuel tank, and batteries. Also, deploying it...

... reveals all stock science instruments (Except the space telescope, but those doesn't work on land anyway). Solar panels and RTGs generates electricity for driving/ transmitting while science experiment is being conducted. Stabilizing anchors ensures that the platform stay still in an extremely unlikely scenario that the rover is rolling by itself across different biome during experiments (That'll affect the result). Science container provides a storage for science when you don't have enough electricity to transmit all of them. Since it only fits one crew, Bob is recommended since he's able to reset science instrumens, but Jeb always find a way to snuck in during the launching

[Zosma Procyon]

I've been experimenting with 80m diameter rings, and have accepted that there is no real way to make them hold together. 40m is enough for now.

Edited August 6, 2018 by Zosma Procyon

[Angelo Kerman]

I made a demo reel showcasing my new submarine system:

 

[Cydonian Monk]

8 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

submarine system....

Kind of the opposite of VTOL. Maybe it should use "Vertical Sinking and Swimming Surfacing" Manager instead? 

Looks nice. I'm sure I'll find some way to abuse this soon. 

Edited August 6, 2018 by Cydonian Monk