What did you do in KSP1 today?

[kurgut]

1 minute ago, Ultimate Steve said:

What are the main differences between RP-0 and RP-1?

A lot!

Tooling costs, astronauts training time, space center maintenance costs, the tech tree, now completely historical, the career is very very well balanced.

And of course, it's for 1.3.1, so very stable (mods too)

Here the tech tree:

You should take a look at the RP-0 discord, there're install support for RP-1, and prepackaged gamedata folder

[Ultimate Steve]

1 minute ago, kurgut said:

A lot!

Tooling costs, astronauts training time, space center maintenance costs, the tech tree, now completely historical, the career is very very well balanced.

And of course, it's for 1.3.1, so very stable (mods too)

Here the tech tree: 

You should take a look at the RP-0 discord, there're install support for RP-1, and prepackaged gamedata folder

I would absolutely love to give this a go. I really really really want to. Except my free time is already minimal... Maybe in a few weeks/months. Thanks for letting me know about this!

[kurgut]

Just now, Ultimate Steve said:

I would absolutely love to give this a go. I really really really want to. Except my free time is already minimal... Maybe in a few weeks/months. Thanks for letting me know about this! 

Coool! let me  know when starting

[Zosma Procyon]

Ribming and Phoebe Kerman just returned to Kerbin after over 40 years on Duna. Before I had the Kerbal Alarm Clock addon, I would forget to transmit science from my bases for in game decades at a time. Here is their adorable little return craft.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Zosma Procyon

[FezCool]

On 8/18/2018 at 4:37 AM, KandoKris said:

Finally finished tweaking and testing my laythe carrier 

now released for all 

Nice! I'm working on an aircraft carrier myself.

[Zosma Procyon]

I just did something so stupid I have to tell people about it. A transport carrying 16 Kerbals back from a mobile base on Duna just arrived back at Kerbin, and rather than ditch the heavy engines (NERVs) and fuel tanks in orbit, I decided to try to recover the whole think. Well even with the single XL parachute it hit the water at 25 m/s, and most of the transport ceased to exist. But miraculously the entire cargo of Kerbals survived. This is the aftermath.

[Triop]

2 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

Ribming and Phoebe Kerman just returned to Kerbin after over 40 years on Duna. Before I had the Kerbal Alarm Clock addon, I would forget to transmit science from my bases for in game decades at a time. Here is their adorable little return craft.

I ran out of likes, so I'm quoting your awesomeness.

Starting a timed flight for my Dessert Derby.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Triop

[Angelo Kerman]

I finished the last of the bug fixes for my new custom resource harvester, and then flew one of my flying saucers to my Skylab analog:

[CatastrophicFailure]

Another day goofing around... Decided to try a Stratolaunch analogue: 

Big, silly airplane: Check!

Ridiculously overpowered rocket with a silly name: Check!

Spoiler

 

I call it the "Light-heavy-sorta-medium-but-not-really-ish" Launcher.
The Vector is a bit much...

Fireworks: CHECK!

 

After a slow climb to 10,000 meters and a quick boost from the solids, we're ready for release...

 

Ignition!

 

Climbing out... hey, it's actually working...

Was not entirely expecting that...

 

Booster sep... this is going entirely too well...

 

MECO and stage sep just below orbital speed. Tons of fuel still left in the core. Literally tonnes.

 

Couple of klick/s worth in the upper stage, time for a jaunt around the Mün.

"Yep, that's the Mün."

"If you believe..."

"Andy, did you hear about this one?"

. . . 

"Wait, who's Andy?!"

 

Could have easily brought a lander with more planning, but didn't, so barring that, we'll just chunk junk at him instead.

 

Heading home after two loops.

Hey! @Elon Musk! We all know you read this forum, or at least one of your minions does! You need to do this with a DragonButt™ and make like the song says!

 

A surprisingly uneventful flight...

 

See that? Even the crew is bored...

 

Phase II: A business plan that actually works for Big Silly Airplane and Silly Named Rocket and actually makes sense...

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure
Curse you, metric, and your intuitive but rational measuring system!

[qzgy]

I tried to make a sorta nice bike thing.

It kinda works?

Sorta.

The stability is kinda atrocious, but is helped by passive stability achieved through exploitation of the rapier engine COM offset and some stabilizer wheels which helps prevent crashing.

So it doesn't tip over when turning, but rather tries to lean into a turn which is good, but that then provides the problem that it tips over too much. This isn't quite helped by funky wheel physics which both doesn't really quite allow for wheels to grip and skid AND makes all the wheel super bouncy and launch into the air if its going too sideways.

Perhaps though some of it is wheel tuning. File available here for tinkering if anyone is interested.

[CatastrophicFailure]

9 minutes ago, qzgy said:

tried to make a sorta nice bike thing.

first thought 

[qzgy]

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

first thought 

Wont lie, I was thinking of that bike a bit while making it

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

Having unlocked the most powerful relays, I built a probe for Moho.

The double dishes are overkill just for maintaining communication between Moho and Kerbin, but I want Moho to function as a kind of communications hub for the entire Kerbol system, since its position close to the sun means that it's generally going to be in a good position to bounce signals between planets on opposite sides of their orbits. The actual transfer window is still a ways off, but this design has successfully achieved its intended orbit around Moho in F5F9 tests.

I also sent a SENTINEL telescope on its way to an orbit just below Kerbin (in order to satisfy a contract.)

Finally, I unlocked some probe cores with the maximum SAS level, so now it's time to start building some permanent unmanned vehicles instead of the temporary, soon-to-be-obsolete stuff that I'd been using. First off, I built a new lifter vehicle to handle landings on the Mun.

With it I'm sending a science module (containing a full suite of experiments,) an AGU module and a two-person crew landing module. Plus some extra fuel for the station (since I haven't set up mining there yet.)

With the AGU module on-station, I can finally de-orbit the engine that I used to get the first station module to the Mun to begin with and free up another docking port. About time, really.

[woeller]

The best Canyons in the solar system are only available on Dres

A first probe arrived at Sarnus. It will do a flyby on all moons.

Some flyby shots.

A Bonus landing on Hale. Yes! Upside down to privide stability.

Unfortunately, Hale eats my probe during timewarp. The Tekto flyby will probably have to take place later.

https://imgur.com/a/1AUaOUw

[Eriksonn]

Nothing too exiting apart from redoing the orbits of Sarnus moons so that they would not go crazy becauce of principia, and also alot of timewarp. First ovok became unstable becauce of Eeloo, so i moved Eeloo out a bit but the slate messed up Eeloo so i had to move it out aswell. It ended with Slate kicking out Tekto into interplanetary space but now Everything seems alright except that hale and ovok get very high inclinations after about 10 years for some strange reason.

Now i can start my new carrer mode without principia yelling at me that ovok is weird.(I cant max timewarp in my carrer game now becauce of that. And that is essensial for opm...)

But nothing really apart from that.

[Starslinger999]

(Previous Imgur Link for those who didnt See it:https://imgur.com/a/hunOgiC )

Now for the Refueling of the Kermes :https://imgur.com/gallery/uHodDtV

[Cavscout74]

After a few days without, I made some progress in my career with arrival of a station & crew around Moho

Moho Station entering orbit.  I really did not think too much about where this station was going before launch.   Those 4 small radiators & 4 small thermal control systems aren't really up to the task of cooling a nuclear lightbulb drive around Moho.  I needed several small burns between entering Moho SoI & reaching Pe to slow down enough for my final insertion burn to only be a few hundred dV and within the capabilities of the limited heat control I had.  Further maneuvers were needed to establish a polar orbit & circularize around 40km

The Avalon continuing its service by bringing the first crew to Moho.  Between being less massive overall & having a much more robust thermal control system, I had an easier time getting Avalon into orbit.

About to dock the Avalon with Moho Station.  The Moho Quad Lander will be arriving to dock in a few hours.  I ran out of time for the actual landing though, which will be at the Mohole to fulfill a contract.  Also, there is a small patch of Moho that now glows in the dark courtesy of the jettisoned station nuclear drive.  No one has found any Mohotians yet, so I wasn't too concerned about nuking them

 

[joacobanfield]

Stealth Plane, discreetly protecting the innocent with graphical glitches!

[FezCool]

After fiddling with multiple VTOL aircraft and strategies on how to land them, I finally landed my naval fighter on my aircraft carrier.

Admittedly, I used a parachute, so it's not a true carrier landing.

I also updated my carrier design that I've been working on for the past week. It now supports four of my "PTV(Platypus Test Vehicle)" fighters.

The great thing about my aircraft carrier is that it's very hard to land on, which is why I'm naming it the KSS Tylo.

The full album: https://imgur.com/a/FXAab6h

This was done on Xbox btw

Edited August 23, 2018 by FezCool
Fixed

[JadeOfMaar]

After even more messing with B9 HX, I brought the best of 3 worlds together: OPT, SSPXr and B9 HX.

There are 3 instances of the HX engine now. This third instance is a hybrid Epstein drive....oh and there are Pathfinder Lassos (scoops) so that rear section can refuel itself. It could do with a warp drive or jump drive.

I'm at a gas giant.

[FezCool]

Btw, how do you post pictures?

[JadeOfMaar]

2 minutes ago, FezCool said:

Btw, how do you post pictures?

Put your picture online somewhere, get the url (once it ends in .jpg or .png) and paste that into the forum. The forum will spawn the image from it

[Zeiss Ikon]

On 8/20/2018 at 7:25 PM, kurgut said:

Yes ok, I guess you play in hard settings right?

And finally yes, you're right, accepting contracts before launch with a backup rocket is the most useful for interplaneray launches : if no backup rocket, and if your first one fails, then the contract (flyby, orbit, landing, etc) will fail, because have to wait for next window to the planet targeted (200 to 400 days for mars/venus).

The last couple tries have been "hard," yes.  First one was "normal", then a "custom" trying to find a happy medium on build and research times (got way too fast -- went to orbit in 1952).

On 8/20/2018 at 11:40 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Is there any way you could fly them from the VAB? Use solid boosters to get airborne and land using parachutes?

Some of the X-Plane contracts allow "airplane or rocket" -- mostly the X-Plane (High) -- and others specify "airplane (not a rocket)" and require something like maintaining speed or altitude for three minutes.  Those latter won't complete if you launch from the launch pad, even if you could build a rocket that could hold altitude that long.  I could probably sneak a rocket into the SPH and launch it from the runway, but the SPH has an interesting bug, too (it's actually a KCT bug): the tiniest edit to a completed SPH craft requires building it from zero completion again -- even just "fill the tanks".  With airplanes taking 2-3 times as long as early rockets to complete without pouring upgrades into the SPH (by taking them away from VAB and R&D, of course), this gets discouraging pretty rapidly.

My first attempts at the "supersonic" FAI contract, I put stubby wings and an X-1 cockpit on an A-4 and let Val or Jeb pitch it over horizontal (managed that at around 10k meters).  I tried building an actual X-1 (with the XLR-11 engine -- which you won't get until 1953, as far as I can manage), and couldn't get it off the ground with the rocket fuel tanks full, even when I added a pair of J-85 turbojets for takeoff.

On 8/21/2018 at 3:32 AM, qzgy said:

Speaking from my limited experience, I didn't really feel like the SPH and X-Plane contracts were really worth it. I know for one I pretty much just strapped a kerbal into a cockpit with a ton of boosters underneath on the launchpad which apparently counted as a "plane" enough to complete it. But other than maybe some quick cash in the beginning of the program.

I would also suggest in investing more into R&D. Its quite helpful for later game stuff when things take a good quarter of the year to research or longer.

Huh that seems kinda slower compared to what @Ultimate Steve and I have been doing. In early 1955 we were both launching unmanned lunar missions. Somewhat curious why that might be. Maybe its because we are on 1.2.1 and you are on 1.3.X and something has changed in between? Could also just be play style.

I don't know how play style could really affect this -- if you don't stuff VAB with upgrades early on, you can't fly contracts fast enough to worry about R&D, but if you don't build up R&D early on, you spend years waiting for the tech to unlock to build and fly even a Juno/Explorer orbital launch.  And my experience says that if you try to launch to orbit while you're still flying alcohol burners, you will sink your program, because the best the RD-103 gets will still result in a failure about 3 launches in five (with three engines igniting on the pad and one in the second stage, any one of which will kill the mission if it fails).  You really need kerosene burners -- LR-79, LR-105 verniers, and the X-405, along with the AJ10 series for upper stages -- to make cost-effective orbital launchers, never mind ones that will actually get to orbit.

I've made a few honest mistakes of my own that slow things down (forgetting to wait and let the tanks fill on the pad after having to reduce fuel load in the VAB to be able to roll out, because I haven't been able to afford a pad upgrade, for instance).  At one point, my "Take Six" career was down to less than 2000 (no, I didn't leave a zero off -- as I recall I had seventeen hundred funds at the lowest -- probably bought an upgrade point when I shouldn't have, then had a string of launch failures).

I'm 23 or so episodes into Nathan Kell's "Rusty RP-1" video series on YouTube (recordings of him streaming his testing of the install); I don't know how he does it.  He was launching Lunar orbiters, comsats, weather sats, etc. by 1956.

Honestly, I'd be a lot happier with the RP-1 tech tree if the calendar started in 1946 instead of 1951.  WAC Corporals and captured A-4s, centrifugal compressor jet engines, that's 1945-1946 tech (well, the A-4 first flew in 1943, the WAC in 1944).  The real world X-1 broke Mach 1 in 1948.  Eleven years to get first satellite makes a lot more sense than six, IMO.

Anyway, this discussion should really be in the "who's playing RP-1?" thread.

Last night in KSP I fought with Scatterer bugs (Canaveral under hundreds of meters of water), night before other bugs (game loaded my rocket at sea level instead of pad level, and I didn't realize it -- the collision with the underside of the pad didn't help the flight at all).

[FezCool]

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Put your picture online somewhere, get the url (once it ends in .jpg or .png) and paste that into the forum. The forum will spawn the image from it

Thanks!

[Cavscout74]

I managed to get the Moho crew landed by the Mohole & returned to Moho station

Then my heavy Eve lander arrived & landed in the highlands.  Just above the cloud layer:

And below: