What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Zosma Procyon]

I've mostly been fast forwarding, stopping to transmit science. I have two flotillas flying out to Jool, and my orbital map is a bit too cluttered to launch more missions.

[RealKerbal3x]

6 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

I've mostly been fast forwarding, stopping to transmit science. I have two flotillas flying out to Jool, and my orbital map is a bit too cluttered to launch more missions.

Try putting your mouse to the top of the screen and hiding some vessel types. I find hiding debris helps a lot, since most saves have a lot of debris floating around.

[Geonovast]

Maybe I need Automated Screenshots back.  I sent my Falcon for an eastward circumnavigation last night, and left it running when I went to bed.  I wanted to see how far it got, if it would make it all the way around, crash, etc.  No autopilot mod, just steady as she goes. (It's nuclear with electric props, so no moving CoM to worry about).

Well, it didn't do either.  It got a little past the next land mass (We really need continent names) and then stalled out.  Well, not stalled, but... equalized?  Hovered.  About 4.5 km above the water.  Woke up this morning and initially thought the game froze.  Nope, just hovered.  4 of them just sitting, hovering, doing nothing, for I'm guessing at least 5 hours.

And I Didn't.Take. A. Screenshot.

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by Geonovast

[Hotel26]

I had reported working on Viking:

It turned out more like this:

(You can see the 'pectoral shield' from which Viking begets its name.  The 'shield" is actually a 2.5m-to-small docking coupler used for depositing heavy vehicles, such as mining rigs, on a lunar surface.)
[Click any image in this post and then 'slide' left or right to see the others full screen...]

Viking is a 'locomotive' for a "SpaceTrain".  It has 2 core docks plus 8 others for $$$load.  At the destination, Viking, as well as deploying surface vehicles, can then act as a fuel shuttle to boost fuel from a surface mining site to an orbiting station.

I made a new "control tower" for use on lunar surfaces:

I had hoped that the height of this was just right for Kerbals to pop in and out of the dock above their head...  Couldn't be bothered adjusting it, so have taken the legs off and provided rungs on both sides to the hatches, which are pretty close to the ground.

And I built an updated, Kerbodyne version of my old, orange tank monstrosity, Aquila VII ("Quasimodo").  This is Aquila VIII:

Like the ancient 7, it sports a pay-load platform of 7 docks, with thrust distributed over all.  Last shot shows it on the pad, loaded with:

4 Gimlet mining rigs
2 Krew modules for use with a remote destination space station
1 Beep planet telesat system (6 comsats) plus
a partridge in
a pear tree

Edited October 19, 2018 by Hotel26

[Kebab Kerman]

Ok, so I know this wasn't today (I think it was actually 4 months ago) but I wanted to share it anyway.

At full speed, it goes mach 3. If it was at sea level, that is.

[capi3101]

Last couple of days have been spent getting caught up on my current set of contracts. Wednesday began with the final placement of the Kerbin Foxtrot and Mun Delta probes in high polar orbits of their namesake spheres for contracts. Next up was the retrieval of engineer Hudbree Kerman:

Should have had my orbit characteristics up in this screenie...the inclination was up there, i'll say that. And retrograde. And I got a 45 m intercept on the first try...

The Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe responsible for bringing Hudbree and her wreckage back to Kerbin landed in the deserts safely about 700 klicks west of KSC. 

I had installed the Pathfinder mod on Tuesday, and discovered the first major issue with having this mod installed - I next wanted to recharge the Piper Alpha refinery on Mun and it was finally light enough out on the surface to do so, so I hit the button to start up the drills. Nothing happened. Forgetting that I have Action Groups Extended installed and that I could've easily corrected the problem, I proceeded to turn on the drills manually - all twenty of them. I then discovered Pathfinder's next effect, that the ore extraction rate was substantially reduced...whereas before I could let the ISRU convert the ore into fuel and monoprop happily with the drills running and never run out of ore, now the ore is barely trickling out of the ground. Took me the better part of the Munar day to finally recharge the refinery. Same thing happened yesterday at Deepwater Horizon on Minmus. Now, I would've ordinarily said "that's enough of that" and uninstalled the mod, but in the wake of the completion of the placement of the Kerbin Golf probe for contract (again, high, inclined and retrograde), I got a camping contract for Deepwater Horizon that will by itself pay enough for me to launch an Alcubierre Drive ship. So I plan to tough it out. And in the meantime, I probably oughta figure out how to use Pathfinder properly...DH is just not set up to house tourists right now. 

So next up was the arrival of the Auk XII 6-passenger spaceplane at Minmus:

Planes are bad for intermunar travel, m'kay?

I took the XII way out there because I had a contract to test a RAPIER engine on an escape trajectory from Minmus; that contract was fulfilled upon SOI entry. Despite being fully fueled upon its departure from space station Kerbinport five days earlier, the plane ran out of oxidizer about the time I took the screenie above, and had to finish her final approach to space station Minmusport on RCS thrust only, going through about half of its monoprop supply.

 
Just to reiterate - planes are bad for intermunar travel, m'kay?

Final docking took place yesterday. Upon docking, tourist Geofmon Kerman was thrown from his seat in the front of the plane and ejected out about 1.7 kilometers before I could get his jetpack burning enough to send him back to the station. He and tourist Philsy Kerman then took the station's Spamcan 7 monoprop lander down to Deepwater Horizon for some sightseeing before returning safely to Minmusport. After their return, the Auk was refueled from the station's reserves. With the long-running contract to establish a space station over Minmus still not-fulfilled due to a lack of liquid fuel, the Auk remained until the arrival of an Exxon Valdez 7c long-range emergency tanker craft a day later. The EV was also unable to bring the LF supply up sufficiently, so at that point the station's Old Bessie 7 tanker lander was sent to Deepwater Horizon for a fuel run, successfully fulfilling the space station contract upon its return. It also successfully ejected Geofmon - again - upon docking. This second time, he left the physics range of the station before I was able to turn him around and get him back to the station. Still don't know why the game was doing that....

Anyway, after Geofmon returned, the Auk departed and burned for Kerbin; she'll arrive in five days. Yesterday ended with the placement of the Minmus Charlie probe for contract and the return of Necessary Evil to Kerbin after her extended journey to Minmus. She's scheduled to dock at Kerbinport later today, after which one of the ferries at the station - Next Objective, probably - will send the current batch of tourists aboard to Mun for the final leg of their sightseeing tour.

Aside from the ongoing tourist missions, I have successfully completed my last batch of missions. I think I'll turn my attention to learning about how resource gathering works in Pathfinder, since it looks like I'm going to be using it for quite a little while. Sure do hope I don't have to move my refineries...

[Atkara]

There's something to be said about starting fresh. So I began a new career earlier today in 1.5.x and Kerbostar Enterprises was born.

Usual stuff, grab a little bit of science around the launchpad and runway (to get acclimated with running experiments, right? ), launch the first vessel, grab some science after splashdown, then shoot for orbit with none other than Jeb. His pod came back with a fair amount of scorchmarks, as heat shields hadn't arrived yet when he launched. Jeb though wasn't concerned -on the contrary, he seemed to like it... Valentina followed shortly after for the first EVA -this time with heat shield installed.

The Mun flyby was a bit tricky, as we were basically shooting blind and what was thought to be a free return, was in fact a slingshot. But the crew of 3 (Jeb, Bill & Bob) landed safe and sound. 

With the tracking station still at level 0, Jeb launched for the first Mun Landing. He's currently at a pretty good spot on it's highlands, while the competition keeps adding more boosters, trying to catch up  

Will I keep going? I don't know. After all, I still have my old career. We'll see.

[jwenting]

turned off KSP spying on my computer and sending all kind of data to Unity for marketing purposes. Will keep monitoring to see if it actually did turn it off or just told me it has.

Severely disappointed by this development.

[DerekL1963]

12 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

I've mostly been fast forwarding, stopping to transmit science. I have two flotillas flying out to Jool, and my orbital map is a bit too cluttered to launch more missions.

Try using Kerbal Alarm Clock to track missions in flight...

[magnemoe]

15 hours ago, BRAAAP_STUTUTU said:

the BFS heavy on a return trajectory carrying over a million funds worth of blutonium :p

How does that one work, you uses an inflatable heat shield so I assume you will drop it from orbit rather than land it inside the BFS?

Has my own program like that. 


Drag plates has become kind of my signature works very well for Mun or Minmus returns. 

Uses Moonshadow as an staging area, tanker from Minmus aslo has an drag plate for aerobrakeing. 


Minmus base during peak hours.

From left, an Minmus science lander/ light orbital utility craft. Planetary express passanger ship on the Mun, Minmus out of Kerbin SOE route. An ore carrier like the one docked to Moonshadow, main hub with habitation, lab and greenhouse. 
Two industry modules, fuel depot and mining, an resource silo, Duna base to the right. 



 

[CatastrophicFailure]

5 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Maybe I need Automated Screenshots back.  I sent my Falcon for an eastward circumnavigation last night, and left it running when I went to bed.  I wanted to see how far it got, if it would make it all the way around, crash, etc.  No autopilot mod, just steady as she goes. (It's nuclear with electric props, so no moving CoM to worry about).

Well, it didn't do either.  It got a little past the next land mass (We really need continent names) and then stalled out.  Well, not stalled, but... equalized?  Hovered.  About 4.5 km above the water.  Woke up this morning and initially thought the game froze.  Nope, just hovered.  4 of them just sitting, hovering, doing nothing, for I'm guessing at least 5 hours.

And I Didn't.Take. A. Screenshot.

 

This is, I think, a consequence of the stock SAS, if that’s what you’re usung. It holds a set pitch/heading relative to the universe, not the ground, so an aircraft (unless maybe on prograde hold) will gradually pitch higher and higher relative to the ground until it stalls and drops or, in your case, reaches equilibrium and just kinda gets stuck.  

[Magzimum]

The Poles of Duna look like candy even more than Minmus!

Also very pleased with the rover lander. A little extra steel plating made for very easy delivery of the rovers. Once disconnected they just rolled off and turned themselves. And the ramps doubled as landing legs as well!

[wossname]

Val and Tom rescued 11 kerbals from the Island using an amphibious jet.

How does one upload a screenshot?

[RoboRay]

Chinese RSS/RO/RP-0 space program - First attempt at manned orbit:

The Dajing launch vehicle is an outgrowth of the earlier satellite launcher, with the same RD-108 core engine.  The lower stage core tank structure is extended and expanded at the top to accommodate a larger RD-105 upper stage than previously flown, along with the Dilong spacecraft above.  Four of the same RD-107 boosters flown on the earlier launcher are arranged around the core stage.

Everything goes as expected--- until the lower stage is exhausted and detached.  Unfortunately, the RD-105 upper stage engine fails to light.

The pilot detaches the capsule from the service module and activates the RCS to turn around for reentry.

It's a disappointing day for pilot Liang Li, who had hoped his final flight would be an orbital one.  He's scheduled to retire in three months.

Edited October 19, 2018 by RoboRay

[Kebab Kerman]

My new harddrive just arrived! Time to get back to breaking the game! We must have celebretory sacrifices! MILLIONS OF THEM!

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, wossname said:

How does one upload a screenshot?

One uploads the image to a third party image host (Imgur is popular hereabouts) and then takes the embed code provided and pastes it into the message editor window here on the forums.

[RoboRay]

Let's try this again...

There are no problems with the RD-105 this time.

First orbit completed and all systems are operating within expectations.  Mission Control gives the go-ahead to spend the next 24 hours in space!

Engineer Bao Yong waves out his tiny window as Cape Canaveral passes near the northern horizon.  The Americans have been beaten into orbit by two years!

Two more solo Dilong flights are scheduled, then two and three-man Tulong flights will follow.

[THEdragon]

I have become quite accustomed to rescue contracts and now have a crew of over 30 rescued kerbals. Yesterday I was rescuing Serena Kerman from orbit around the Mün. As I had her on EVA heading towards her rescue craft, I accidentally misjudged her speed and distance... She ended up slamming into the craft at a rather high velocity, sending both her and the ship spinning wildly! Serena had a rather unhappy look on her face (understandably) as she bounced off it, too. She did manage to get safely into the ship eventually, but I'd imagine she was quite sore. The worst part was, I ended up running out of fuel before I could re-enter Kerbin's atmosphere.

Thankfully I had quicksaved right before the rendezvous between the rescue ship and Serena's stranded pod. I reverted back to it and redid the EVA transfer, this time with much less collision, and managed to get my Kerbin periapsis within the atmosphere. My apoapsis was still very high so it took quite a few rounds of aerobraking before the crew could descent back to the surface, but they did make it eventually. Serena was also brave enough to get some EVA reports from space above a few different biomes, as well as an EVA report during re-entry!

[Zosma Procyon]

9 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

Try using Kerbal Alarm Clock to track missions in flight...

I do use it. That's why I have to stop fastforwarding every few days.

[Triop]

"Now where the F$#@&%-16 am I ? ? ?

"Base ?"

[CatastrophicFailure]

18 minutes ago, Triop said:

"Now where the F$#@&%-16 am I ? ? ?

"Base ?"

Never say die. 

[NHunter]

Today, my brave crew has finally arrived to Ceti.

And once the science was collected, Jade Gaelan went to survey a nearby valley to see whether it can indeed be used to build a surface base. While there isn't as much space as I would've wanted, the valley is reasonably flat with 1.4 degree slope and has a large ore deposit underneath it. Perhaps, it will be possible to build an extra-Gaelan launch site there...

Meanwhile a rescue mission returned from Iota and once again showed that I can't hit a wide side of a barn (from space)...

[Nymon]

Today, I went to the Mun and Minmus with three tourists and came back.

I just want to share with you guys the beauty landing with a rising Sun. I did it while listening the Interstellar Main Theme and it was pretty awesome :

 

 

Here is another view for a Science Rocket :

[FinalFan]

Today my Duna mission truly began* ... and I immediately got a bonus encounter with Ike.  Score!  Or maybe that was all but guaranteed; I am not familiar with Duna—don't care, I'm happy.  I think the encounter will help me bleed speed, too, on top of the fact that if I'm not mistaken the sheer fact of going to the satellite means less retroburning from the eccentric orbit.  I already had ample delta-V without all this help, so now I just have to be careful to not be too greedy with the aerobraking. 

[edit:  TinyPic is dead; long live Flickr.  Original link for insanity posterity:  http://i67.tinypic.com/63t0xt.jpg ]

*I had already run a shakedown cruise around Kerbin system, refueled, gone down to LKO, and exchanged tourists for topping off fuel. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by FinalFan
TinyPic is dead; long live Flickr.

[THEdragon]

Today I saw a solar eclipse when I returned from rescuing Jerman Kerman from orbit! Other kerbals may laugh at his name, but the joke is on them because Jerman got welcomed home with a beautiful eclipse!