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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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Didn't have a great deal of time to play over the weekend - my log records 2 hours and 35 minutes over the past two days - but I still feel like I got a fair amount accomplished.

On Saturday, I launched the new Minnow 7b 3-hour touring craft from KSC, sending it up to dock successfully at space station Kerbinport, where tourists Shepus, Eduki and Ludvan Kerman boarded. Jeb and pilot Gwenlock Kerman got in the craft's driver seats, which then departed for a rendezvous with LSV House Harkonnen in a 300 kilometer equatorial orbit over Kerbin. Meanwhile, the Bill Clinton 7b probe I'd built at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus on Friday reached its target, a MOLE Mark One Habitat. The target payload was grabbed successfully and the probe burned for Kerbin, where it is scheduled for atmospheric entry a little over 42 hours from now. Strange Cargo also arrived in Mun's SOI with its shipful of colonists heading to the Piper Alpha outpost on the Munar surface.

Piper Alpha finished the printing of the Wisent 7a utility rover that had been under construction there for the past few days. Pilot Patrod Kerman EVA'd from the outpost and got in the driver's seat, then drove it the three kilometers to Mun Outpost 1.

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Okay kids, let's play "spot the design flaws in capi's rover"! Actually, it handled relatively well all things considered, but I still took it plenty easy. Approaching Mun Outpost 1 in this screenie.

After arriving, Patrod hooked up the rover to the outpost, giving it a laboratory module and fulfilling the conditions for the outpost's establishment contract.

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One finished contract. And outpost. Contract and outpost. Them KAS cables, though...

Job done, Patrod unhooked the rover from the outpost and jetpacked back to Piper Alpha. (I've learned that KAS cables in the latest version of the mod are 100% Kraken bait - it's like putting a thumper out on the sands of Arrakis; eventually you are definitely going to get a worm). I have no intended use for Mun Outpost 1 and will be looking into if/how I can dismantle it safely when I have an opportunity to do so. The replacement contract offered would've involved moving one of my communications satellites, and when I refused to do so, the game did not offer me another replacement.

ScanSat Ike completed its orbital narrow-band surveying mission, identifying three biomes on the surface as suitable for the establishment of colony sites (all in the mountains, naturally). Combined with the broadband data I had from the probe's resource surveyor scanner, I selected an initial landing site for the establishment of a future Ike outpost along the equator. I know the area will have the resources in-situ for a large Pathfinder base, but I won't really know the whole picture until I can get a scout rover down there. The plan is for House Harkonnen (or perhaps LSV House Atreides) to prepare such a rover upon the ship's return to Duna after the mission to establish the Enchova Central outpost on Duna is complete.

After spending some time conducting refueling mass driver shots between the South Base outpost near KSC and Kerbninport and recharging South Base's supply stores, it was time for the Minnow to make her transfer burn to rendezvous with House Harkonnen. The Minnow made the rendezvous successfully and docked on the ship's second Minnow pier.

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LSV House Harkonnen over Kerbin, with the Minnow 7b (left), Minnow 7 (right) and Bigby Workshop module (back) all docked.

With the arrival of the new Minnow craft, the time had come to retire the old Minnow craft, the only true casualty I experienced from my career save's switchover from 1.5.1 to 1.6.1. Everybody filed out of the craft except for pilot Billy-Bobcal Kerman, who would be needed aboard long enough to get the craft into position directly aft of Harkonnen (owing to the fact that the earlier Minnow craft had no on-board computer control). Once the craft was in position, the recycler unit of Harkonnen's drydock was activated and Billy-Bobcal gave the ship 15 cm/s of forward thrust.

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Billy-Bobcal bailing. Say that five times fast.

The Minnow was successfully recycled, and Billy-Bobcal got back aboard Harkonnen via the Bigby workshop's airlock module. With that job done, slightly over three thousand Rocket Parts were sent up to Harkonnen to complete the print job of the TBD 7c base-seeding rover currently under construction aboard ship. I have got cause for concern with that job at this point - the TBD is nearly thirteen meters long and the drydock is designed for craft only up to eleven meters in diameter; I'm afraid the thing will get jammed in there when I go to finalize the build. Might have to tear it down and start completely over, which will delay Harkonnen's return to Duna for at least three days or more...

Once the Minnow arrived at Harkonnen, Strange Cargo entered Munar orbit and her rendezvous burn was set with space station Munport. Before she arrived and docked safely there, Necessary Evil returned to Kerbin from her recent trip out to Minmus, eventually arriving and docking safely at Kerbinport. At Munport, colonists Linbo, Richlong, Jorbro, Merwise, Genenard, Juldous, Cerlin and Theofel Kerman were loaded aboard the Crater Maker 8-passenger lander docked there, which then departed Munport and made its way to Piper Alpha, landing safely just off the outpost's launch pad.

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Yes, I was trying for the center of the pad. Obviously I missed, but that's not really a bad thing - had I been successful, the landing legs would've sunk into the pad when I hooked the lander up to the outpost. No telling what kinds of fun that would've caused...

The outpost wasn't ready to receive the colonists when they arrived; outpost staff quickly printed up a Mineshaft portable crew tube. Engineer Haydorf Kerman deployed one of the station's spare Castillo dome modules and attached the Mineshaft to it, then linked it up with the Crater Maker so the colonists could disembark from the lander in relative comfort. The colonists are now safely ensconced in the new Castillo, where they will wait for the next 48 hours. Meanwhile the lander was refueled and unlinked from the outpost. It will make its way back up to Munport and after refueling again will be bringing colonist Sonden Kerman down to the outpost, at which point Strange Cargo will be returning to Kerbin on full automatic control.

After refueling, Necessary Evil saw a change in command as pilot Gregald Kerman became the new acting capsule commander, swapping places with pilot Alder Kerman as capsule commander of Kerbinport. Scientist Frovan Kerman also moved to man the station's lab. Colonists Nellrey, Geoffrod, Genery and Jeaneane Kerman boarded Necessary Evil, which then departed for Minmus, making the transfer burn just this morning; NE will arrive in Minmus's SOI in a little over 32 hours.

That's all there is to report for my weekend. I need to get the lander back up from Munport, but other than that the next event I've got on the alarm clock is the completion of the TBD rover aboard Harkonnen, which is about ninety minutes away. I will do a quicksave right when the rover finishes - if it appears I can get the rover free of the drydock, Harkonnen will be go for a Duna return mission as soon as the rover is fueled and equipped. If not, I'll revert and try to tear down the build. I'm hoping nothing disastrous happens with this whole deal (like the drydock exploding in a poof of logic, though even that wouldn't necessarily be a catastrophic loss) - more than anything, I'm looking forward to the challenge of establishing a new outpost at Duna. Got some serious plans in store there. Just have to be patient...

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2 hours ago, aagun123 said:

[Broken pictures removed by moderator]

Hi @aagun123, looks like there was some sort of problem with your attempt to insert photos, so we've removed them to prevent display problems for folks.

If you'd like to post a photo, please be aware that the forum itself can't host them-- what you need to do is to host them in some publicly accessible website such as imgur.com, then link to the photo from here.  Thanks!

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I rebuilt my KSC to LKO rescuer. The old version was over-engineered to compensate for my relative lack of piloting skill, but recently I've been coming up with hundreds of leftover Delta-V on it, and it's a waste. The new version knocks close to 6% off the cost of a rescue launch.

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With every biome tapped out for science, the Blind Dragon sets course back to the Sourdough Ascent Vehicle.

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Turns out the SAV is sitting on some very loose sand, and while it's landing legs have found purchase, Blind Dragon's wheels do not, and the scoutplane begins to slide down the dune. Luckily the crew are well trained in emergency evac procedures, and quickly bail out to avoid a bothersome walk.

By the next morning's launch, Blind Dragon seems to have settled into a depression in the sand, and doesn't flinch as the SAV's engines fire up to loft the vessel skyward.

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Returning to dock with the Pink Cougar, the team finally remembers that they were supposed to send the comms relay up to high orbit before they began their descent... They decide to do it now. What mission control never hear about won't cost anyone their snack privileges. 

Docking with the lab, the command pod transfers all its data plus scientist Yuki, and the team settles in for the long wait for their return window home.

...dat SAV doh. Let me tell you about how I tested that thing 3 times before this mission launched and it was fine, and then on the day, it barely... BARELY had enough fuel to reach orbit. Made the rendezvous with 12 units of LF left aboard. Definitely squeaky bum time. Still don't know how it ended up being so terrible, although I have noticed that KER and Mechjeb and stock delta-v readings have all been different for many of this expedition's vessels. Starting to think that the undocking and re-docking and weird staging has broken the maths somewhere...

Edited by eddiew
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On 1/28/2019 at 3:27 PM, adsii1970 said:

I spent more time updating mods today than I did playing. C'est la vie, I guess... ;)

I'm spending 90% of my time developing/fixing/testing Add'Ons on the last six months. I completely understand your pain. :D 

Edited by Lisias
tasting my own medicine :)
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Just now, Lisias said:

I'm spending 90% of my time developing/fixing/testing mods on the last six months. I completely understand your pain. :D 

Part of my problem is I am also trying to create a solar system within the game. I also have to continue developing the light curves to what I already have. I also need to add moons and asteroids, then the only thing left to do would be to skin the planets and the moons and this happens to be my weak point.

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Not played in a while so installed 1.6, SVE/EVE/etc and KOS on my new PC and started a new game.

A quick visit to the runway with a goo container got enough science to unlock the thermometer and first decoupler, and a visit to the launchpad with a goo container and a thermometer got enough science to unlock the hammer.  So my first actual flight managed to get 3 goo containers and thermometers all the way to space and resulted in over 90 science!

So now I'm trying to remember how to use KOS, so far I have a scrip that will go straight up to 50m/s, pitch over to 5 degrees, hold prograde until the required Apoapsis, and then land safely by parachute.  Circularization script next.

Sure does look pretty with a load of visual mods and a graphics card which a benchmarking site reckons is 2000% faster than my old one :D  I went for the i5-8600k for the  new PC so can overclock it to squeeze a bit more speed out of KSP if needed, it's not even spinning up the cooling fan with early game ships and some extra KOS calculations going on.

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Another 1.6 career game update... so what did these little fellas get up to today.

Wanting to raise that Science meter, a team of three was sent to the moon to get that that magical science maker cranking out the good stuff.

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Eager to get onto the surface, the pilot elected to take the fast way down... no ladders for this one.

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Once down she took a moment to take in the scenery, and very pleased with it she was too. This was followed by a quick surface sample before returning to the vehicle and handing it over to the excited pair of scientists in the lab. They never seem to get tired of playing with that grey stuff.

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With the Mun science lab safely on the surface, another was dispatched to Minmus.

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Still got bills to pay, so another hapless (or possibly just very unpoplular) kerbonaut was collected from Kerbin orbit.

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I finally finished all the "Worlds First" missions and achievements and all I got was this lousy screenshot:

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I started years ago, got bored, did something else, continued a bit, got bored again etc... But now, finally, after years of hard work, there are no new "Worlds first" missions in Mission Control!

 

 

 

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Build an ordinary normal and totally functional and flyable spaceplane to get my command pod down from LGO. Then threw it away because that's too dull.

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This? Still not asymmetric enough... it's better, but it's not THERE yet.

Edited by eddiew
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