What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Tyko]

5 hours ago, capi3101 said:

I, like @Martian Emigrant, also use Imgur. Once you've got your files uploaded over there, you can click on the pics you want to post over here; on the right hand side there'll be one that says "Direct Link". You just copy that and then paste it into your post where you want your image to show up.

Been using Imgur for five years now; it has yet to fail me. Also has the virtue of being free to use (last I checked anyway).

They changed something recently because you can copy/paste out of imgur directly into a forum post now.

[Loskene]

16 minutes ago, Tyko said:

They changed something recently because you can copy/paste out of imgur directly into a forum post now.

To embed an image from anywhere (that allows hotlinking) right click the image and select copy image location. Then in the post click insert other media -> Insert image from URL. Then paste the image link you copied, et voila.

[Tyko]

Or just right click in Imgur, select "copy image" then right click in your forum post and select "paste"     

Doesn't work from everywhere, but works from Imgur. It didn't used to.

 

 

Edited February 27, 2019 by Tyko

[Elroy Jetson]

Well, the video is pretty short and the title tells the final outcome.  This was my 5th or 6th attempt at the docking tutorial in the console edition.  I have been successful only twice and I think I got lucky both times.  And the number of hours spent fiddling with it, priceless!

 

 

[capi3101]

44 minutes ago, Elroy Jetson said:

Well, the video is pretty short and the title tells the final outcome.  This was my 5th or 6th attempt at the docking tutorial in the console edition.  I have been successful only twice and I think I got lucky both times.  And the number of hours spent fiddling with it, priceless.

 

You need to listen to Gene when he tells you to turn off your thrusters when you're trying to turn; you want to be making lateral movements with your RCS thrusters, not rotational. Having SAS turned on is going to help you out too.

One other thing you might try (I don't know if you can do this or not - I learned to dock before there was a tutorial for it) is to switch over to the target ship, set SAS on and set it to point normal. Then go back to your ship, set SAS on and set it to anti-normal. You at least know that as far as their respective headings are concerned, both you and the target are lined up. Then it's just a matter of doing lateral movements; position the camera behind your ship and then manuever until the other ship disappears behind your craft. Thrust ahead a little. Maneuver some more. Rinse, repeat. Try to keep your relative velocity under 0.5 m/s or so if you can help it; when you're learning how to dock, slow and steady's a good bet.

Edited February 27, 2019 by capi3101
You said you were using the console version; I don't know those controls...

[Shadowmage]

19 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

One other thing you might try (I don't know if you can do this or not - I learned to dock before there was a tutorial for it) is to switch over to the target ship, set SAS on and set it to point normal. Then go back to your ship, set SAS on and set it to anti-normal. You at least know that as far as their respective headings are concerned, both you and the target are lined up. Then it's just a matter of doing lateral movements; position the camera behind your ship and then manuever until the other ship disappears behind your craft. Thrust ahead a little. Maneuver some more. Rinse, repeat. Try to keep your relative velocity under 0.5 m/s or so if you can help it; when you're learning how to dock, slow and steady's a good bet.

I'll second this method for learning how to do docking.  Eliminating some of the translation axis' and stabilizing rotation by using the SAS on both crafts to target each-other will make learning how to do docking maneuvers much, much, much, easier.

^^ Do the above for awhile, and soon enough you'll be able to do manual docking without targeting or stabilization assistance.  Once you learn the basics it all comes down to 'get in position', 'line up to target', 'apply gentle thrust', and then 'wait patiently for contact'.

Unless your target is spinning off-axis....  Then you are forked. 

[Grogs]

4 hours ago, Elroy Jetson said:

Well, the video is pretty short and the title tells the final outcome.  This was my 5th or 6th attempt at the docking tutorial in the console edition.  I have been successful only twice and I think I got lucky both times.  And the number of hours spent fiddling with it, priceless!

 

 

 

Wow, I'm pretty impressed with how you almost got lined up from being that close together and so far off axis. If I have two ships kinked up like that, I know there's no hope and have to back off to reset. What the others are saying about switching to the other ship and having it point at your ship (actually, control from their docking port and aim at your docking port) will make your life much easier by fixing the problem of aligning the ships' axes. Then you just have to move your ship directly towards the other ship's docking port, reduce your speed to 0.1-0.2 m/s, and then turn off RCS just before they touch so it doesn't try to correct your attitude and end up making you miss.

To get your ship moving directly towards the other ship's docking port, you need to learn to fly the navball. Basically, you need to align your heading (the little "wings" with the dot in the center), the pink target marker, and the yellow prograde marker. I find the easiest way to do this (once relative speeds are matched to within a few m/s) is to lock SAS on the target marker, then use the RCS controls and watch how the prograde marker behaves. Play with this a bit, and you should be able to move the prograde marker on top of the target. Once those are lined up with your heading, you know you're moving directly toward the docking port. You may have to repeat this procedure to make small corrections as you get closer, but if you keep these three lined up, you won't have a problem with flying in circles around the target.

[Elroy Jetson]

Here is a successful version!  I still don't have this figured out, I'm having trouble with the translation controls on the PS4 controller.

 

 

[Angelo Kerman]

I assembled the Duna Flyer and removed the docking ports used for transport and construction:

Edited February 28, 2019 by Angel-125

[Hotel26]

I know this is pretty similar to stuff I've shown before but I'm practicing kaizen here: incremental refinement.

The Gryphon III docked to the silo provides "universal" docking for any size rover/aircraft (I hope) for direct transfer of fuel and passengers.  Gryphon can perform a "push back" operation from the "terminal"[*] if an aircraft gets otherwise stuck.

The silo gets launched atop a Zephyr booster and flies either orbitally or sub-orbitally to the target zone.  After re-entering the lower atmosphere, it separates from the booster and then uses "Cruise" technology to fly pin-point.  The flight shown below departed the KSC at 74W and touched down at the target at 66E.  [Click a screenshot and use the arrows for a slideshow.]

I'm setting up a few of them around Kerbin to act as "hub airports".  The sub-orbital flights are great for target practice!

With all that wing area [not shown], the Cruise silo (working title) is very, very twitchy on ascent to 20km. 

[*] note the passenger lounge accommodating 16 travelers while awaiting connecting flights.

 

P.S. Forgot to mention this, inspired by @Triop's many roll-over incidents in his 80-day round-world trip. 

Maybe I'll take this one for a short excursion somewhere to see what kind of average speed I can get over, e.g. 500km.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Hotel26

[Dan Kerman]

Been working/learning my way to an asteroid encounter/capture contract. Man this is hard but I'm getting there... Class A coming by Kerbin in 70 days...  launched and refueled in orbit from my tanker. Targeted the asteroid...  didn't think about the inclination of the asteroid as it goes by Kerbin...   I'm about 240 degrees out of line! Lesson learned but what can I do about it now? Best to change inclination as far out or out of SOI..... looked and stared at my map...  the Mun...  in the right place! Plotted and executed an intercept... and then a mid course correction to come across in front of the Mun at about a 45 deg inclination... back and forth eyeballing different angles...  crossed my fingers and did the burn.

Came out of Mun SOI back in Kerbin orbit...  8.4 deg off the asteroids inclination. Hot damn! Two small burns and now matched. Intercept burn with RCS to fine tune the intercept... I got it down to 20km and speed 194 m/s. I don't know if I can get it back to Kerbin but baby steps. I really impressed myself with that Mun maneuver.

[Martian Emigrant]

1 hour ago, Dan Kerman said:

Been working/learning my way to an asteroid encounter/capture contract. Man this is hard but I'm getting there... Class A coming by Kerbin in 70 days...  launched and refueled in orbit from my tanker. Targeted the asteroid...  didn't think about the inclination of the asteroid as it goes by Kerbin...   I'm about 240 degrees out of line! Lesson learned but what can I do about it now? Best to change inclination as far out or out of SOI..... looked and stared at my map...  the Mun...  in the right place! Plotted and executed an intercept... and then a mid course correction to come across in front of the Mun at about a 45 deg inclination... back and forth eyeballing different angles...  crossed my fingers and did the burn.

Came out of Mun SOI back in Kerbin orbit...  8.4 deg off the asteroids inclination. Hot damn! Two small burns and now matched. Intercept burn with RCS to fine tune the intercept... I got it down to 20km and speed 194 m/s. I don't know if I can get it back to Kerbin but baby steps. I really impressed myself with that Mun maneuver.

Congrats.

I have myself done some pretty wicked stuff that made me feel good. But like golf its  doing it again that is really frustrating.

You might not bring it back to Kerbin but just keeping in the SOI means refuelling missions.

You are almost there.

 

ME

[capi3101]

Had a pretty eventful day yesterday. After a visit to the Enchova Central outpost on the surface of Duna the day before, the Spamcan 7c lander carrying Jeb, Val, Bill and engineer Gemlorf Kerman made its way back to LSV House Harkonnen in orbit, docking successfully. The crew transferred over and the fuel from the lander's outboard tanks was transferred over to Harkonnen, after which the Spamcan undocked and made its way to a 75-kilometer low equatorial orbit over Duna. The intent is for the craft to act as a target for the establishment of the planned Dunaport space station as well as an orbiting shipyard. Once at least one of those two stations are in place, the Spamcan will dock with it.

Enchova Central then shot a full load of Rocket Parts up to Harkonnen as well as some additional conventional LFO and monopropellant, while the ship's drydock printed up a Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe. Once the print of the probe was completed, it was given a load of monoprop and released from the bay; the probe cleared the bay, immediately swung around and re-grabbed Harkonnen, as the bulk of the probe would've otherwise been outside the ship's warp bubble (and would've therefore blown itself off once Harkonnen went to warp). Once the probe had grabbed on, Harkonnen aimed directly for Eve, activated her Alcubierre Drive and departed Duna.

The Atreides may be taking over Duna for now, but you can be rest assured that Harkonnen will be back at some point. Doesn't bode well for the Imperium, though.

Harkonnen entered Eve's SOI just long enough to get a fly-by counted as a requirement for the latest Exploration contract; she then set a direct course back to Kerbin, eventually establishing herself in a 600 kilometer high equatorial orbit over Kerbin.

Despite my efforts to prevent parts of the Clinton from sticking outside Harkonnen's warp bubble, when the ship finally did come out of warp in standard orbit over Kerbin, I was dismayed to find some nearby debris, which turned out to be the Clinton's terrier engine. The intent had been for the Clinton to land on Kerbin and fulfill the remaining requirements of the Exploration contract, and for that it definitely needed an engine, so an emergency plan was put into place. First, since the Clinton still had monoprop, it released itself from the drydock and maneuvered just beyond the drydock's outer boundary, at which time the drydock's recycler was activated and the probe thrusted back towards it, decoupling its transfer stage. The transfer stage was recycled and the recycler was shut down before the business end of the probe reached the perimeter. At that point, the Minnow 7b touring craft hauling Jeb, Val, pilot Gwenlock Kerman and tourists Eduki, Ludvan and Shepus Kerman undocked from Harkonnen and began maneuvers to have the probe grab a hold of it.


LSV House Harkonnen high over Kerbin, with Minnow 7b and Bill Clinton 7b probes visible.

The Clinton successfully grabbed the Minnow's forward docking port and the Minnow was able to act as the transfer stage. The Minnow lowered its periapsis and aligned with space station Kerbinport, and at the closest approach marker, it burned enough to enter a sub-orbital trajectory. The Clinton was released, and then the Minnow burned to get a rendezvous with the station on its next orbit. This morning I went ahead and road with the Clinton as it successfully splashed down on Kerbin, fulfilling the Exploration contract. The next Exploration contract involves returning a craft that landed on Ike's surface to the surface of Kerbin; I'll be printing up a craft to do that job at the Scan Queen outpost on Ike at the earliest available opportunity.

The latest thing to happen was a call from Scan Queen; the print of a Dystopia Planitia 7 orbital drydock that had been ongoing there for the past ten days was finally complete. The drydock's booster was fueled and the nascent station launched to a 30x10 kilometer equatorial orbit over Ike. The earliest time at which I could circularize the station's orbit coincides with the Minnow's rendezvous with Kerbinport, so it'll be a little bit before that happens, but it is on my short list of things to accomplish next. Once it has achieved final orbit, the Infans Calcitrant Yards will just need to be staffed, at which point I can build new craft in Ike's orbit as needed. The station's launch, as hoped, also cleared an outstanding contract to put a new space station over Ike.

On my short list of things to do, I plan to begin printing up a Hellhound 7 rover and skycrane at Scan Queen. I have a pair of gravimetric surveys to conduct on the surface and the Hound is the best candidate for that kind of job. The Minnow will head back to Kerbinport where the tourists will be swapped out for a new group heading to Duna and Ike, and I'll be putting ICY into its final orbit. I also plan on bringing Harkonnen down closer to Kerbin on conventional drive for some refueling of ship's stores there. I'm guessing Harkonnen's next voyage will take her out to Eve, but I won't know more about any specifics until I get the contracts. Finally, I'm about an hour out from daybreak at a temporary outpost three klicks west of the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun, where I've got a couple of kerbals trying to finish up a new outpost contract there. I'm hoping that one will finish up quickly; rather not waste more time with it...

[Puggonaut]

Built by https://kerbalx.com/Juggernoob/Piggy

Modded slightly by me .

[MSA]

On 2/27/2019 at 8:58 AM, MSA said:

My probe called the Transplanetary Orbital Solar System Satellite or TOSSS ( pronounced toss. The last S is silent )

TOSSS is about to start it's inclination burn to Eeloo

Should I do a live blog like @Triop's 80 days around Kerbin? 

[Jon Tash]

On 2/26/2019 at 5:00 PM, Puggonaut said:

 

Very cool, what is the music you used?

[Puggonaut]

50 minutes ago, Jon Tash said:

Very cool, what is the music you used?

just royatly free stuff from youtube this one was Ambient and Emotional Cinematic .

Edited February 28, 2019 by Puggonaut 2

[purpleivan]

Just noticed that I posted this here rather than its own thread by mistake. Bit of a big dump of info for this thread.

Farewell old friend... or, time to get launching more fuel.

Today we said goodbye to Fuel Depot Alpha. With its fuel depleted it was time for one last flight out from the northern outpost

With a new full load of fuel onboard, the tanker plane fires up the afterburners and heads South.

The location of the Coastal Cruiser is dead ahead, but the Juice Goose swung out over the sea for a better approach.

Once on the ground the plane taxied over to the waiting boat.

Bob's guides in the Goose from the rover, while he finishes his breakfast.

Refuelled, its time for the boat to head out to sea one more.

Val's very aware of the dangerous shallows that threaten to rip parts off the boat if she's not careful.

This seems to be a very stetch of coast.

This leg includes a very large, which the crew had to head deep in to, so as not to loose sight of the coast.

Looks like that lake almost made it as part of the coastline.

Val parks the boat so that Bob can take a quick look at the lake that came "this close" to being part of their route.

Not an enormous area, but Val's glad that they don't need to spend the fuel to drive round it.

Bob then confirms it scientifically... it is indeed a lake.

Before legging it back to the boat.

With the facts on the ground confirmed, the Coastal Cruiser once again continues its journey.

The tanks are still about 15% full, but Val decides this might make a nice place to stop overnight, plus it looks good as a landing site for tomorrows refuel.

She heads for the shallower of the two passages into the lagoon, but at the last moment has second thoughts... is it too shallow.

Best to turn around and head for the other entry.

But after some goading by Jeb, she swings the boat around yet again and takes it in through the shallow spot real slow.

It's more like wading through a puddle than piloting a boat.

Well that seems to be the worst of it... looks like  much deeper water ahead.

With the trial of the shallows over, the Coastal Cruiser heads deeper into the lagoon, before moaring near the far side of it.

Tomorrow brings the morning sun... plus more fuel.

Edited March 1, 2019 by purpleivan

[Castille7]

Just completed the First of a Series of Videos we are planning to do for a Construction Site!

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Castille7

[Grogs]

Today I continued my Jool-5 mission. Previously my ship had gotten a free Jool capture from a Tylo flyby upon entering the system. After a small burn to change inclination near apoapsis, a small maneuver at periapsis scored another Tylo flyby followed by a Laythe encounter. Since my plan is to put the mother ship in orbit around Laythe, this is perfect. After the small correction shown, I was able to capture into a highly elliptical orbit around Laythe. Total dV from entering the Jool system to Laythe orbit was ~450 m/s. I had planned for ~ 1500, so I should have lots of spare fuel for getting home.

 

Since we were flying by Tylo on the way to Laythe, it made sense to split off the Tylo lander and its tug and have them go directly to Tylo. Here they are approaching Tylo.

 

After injecting into Tylo orbit, Val flew the lander down to Tylo. IMO, Tylo is the hardest of the five moons to land on because of the gravity and lack of air. This is why I wanted to get it out of the way first. On the way down I thought I had mis-timed the suicide burn for a while, but it ended up being very well timed. I made it down with more dV remaining than in any of my practice runs.

 

Val and Eristed went out and planted the first flag. I let them enjoy their time on the surface while I switched back to the mother ship and captured at Laythe, then it was time to leave. Luckily, I found I had placed the ladders correctly, and they were able to climb back in the ship. This is a non-trivial consideration on Tylo and I went through several iterations on the Kerbin launch pad getting it right. Val flew the lander back up to the tug in orbit and docked the ascent stage. Now they'll wait for the launch window and fly to Laythe to meet up with the mother ship in the next session.

[Tyko]

On 2/27/2019 at 9:34 PM, Elroy Jetson said:

Here is a successful version!  I still don't have this figured out, I'm having trouble with the translation controls on the PS4 controller.

 

 

You'd have an easier time if RCS thrusters weren't placed so far back on your ship. You want your RCS to be as close as possible to center of mass. This is causing your tail end to swing around when you're trying to thrust laterally. 

Try redesigning your ship so that the RCS is centered around the Center of Mass. I built a ship that uses the same parts as yours, you're using the console version of the game, so they look different but they weigh the same.

This video shows one way to adjust the balance. 

First you want to enable the center of mass indicator in the lower left. Then you can move your RCS forward, you can also move heavy things backwards or make the front lighter. It's actually best to put your fuel tank in the middle of your ship so your Center of Mass doesn't move as much as you use up fuel too...

 

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Tyko
Updated the video to better demonstrate method

[Hotel26]

I was about to call for HELP! on hydrofoils...  I've never been able to make them GO.  I was getting about 30 m/s at most from this transport ferry, which has been specifically designed for my Road Runner endurance rally rover but will also transport an Invader.

One little tweak (I know what I did) and I got this: Pandora...

...in full flight.  Only the tips of the hydrofoil planes are touching the water.  At Mach 0.82, it was still accelerating.  I took this shot just before disengaging SAS (tho I knew full well what would happen to Valentina and Bob if I did).

Whether it can do this with a 4t Road Runner on the rear platform is something I will find out next.

(Pandora is deeply inspired by the live blogs of @Triop and @purpleivan)

TBC!

Edited March 1, 2019 by Hotel26

[Puggonaut]

Bonus bit at the end .

 

[kurgut]

Today, I just a completed a low part count mission challenge  to Minmus and back

Here the mission report:

https://imgur.com/a/MAVtFll

[capi3101]

Relatively slow 24 hours to report to y'all today.

With the range finally clear at the Scan Queen outpost on Ike following yesterday's launch of the Infans Calcitrant Yards, a Hellhound 7 rover and skycrane were ordered up and construction commenced. Construction of the rover took nine hours to complete and the very last thing I've done so far today was launch that rover into a low polar orbit; I'll be using it to conduct a gravimetric survey near the southern pole later today. A second Hound has been ordered up at Scan Queen, which will be conducting a similar mission north of the base.

While that was going on, the Minnow 7b touring craft that had departed from LSV House Harkonnen in orbit of Kerbin yesterday rendezvoused and docked with space station Kerbinport.

Probably should've picked a different docking port for the Minnow; came within inches of knocking the airspike off of an Auk spaceplane also docked at the station...

The Minnow took on fuel at the station and dropped off tourists Eduki, Ludvan and Shepus Kerman, who boarded an Auk II 8-passenger spaceplane also docked at the station. Tourists Eligan, Lanwell and Podgun Kerman then embarked on the Minnow, which subsequently departed from the station and burned to rendezvous with Harkonnen. 

Before the Minnow conducted its burn, I got treated to a Kerbol-rise solar eclipse.

The Minnow eventually rendezvoused and docked with Harkonnen. Since I don't have a current mission for Harkonnen to do, I went ahead and did a slow conventional burn to put her in a 304 x 102 kilometer equatorial orbit; I can pass along supplies via mass driver when she's close to periapsis, while the apoapsis is above the activation fail-safe altitude of the ship's Alcubierre Drive (i.e. I'll be able to warp out closer to apoapsis when the time comes).

Daylight finally came to the temporary outpost I had on Mun, so pilot Patrod Kerman and engineer Haydorf Kerman were able to print up an antenna and a docking port for the outpost from the supplies provided, finishing out the contract requirements. With no use for another Mun base, Haydorf disassembled and packed away the structures aboard the nearby TBD 7a rover. The two Kerbals roved three klicks back to the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun, where they transferred out and the rover was recycled. Not much else to say there - really wasn't a terribly interesting contract, all told.

Other things that happened yesterday included the burn to circularize the Infans Calcitrant Yards in a 30 kilometer equatorial orbit over Ike, and the docking of a Spamcan 7a lander at the nascent shipyard with pilot Lerod Kerman and scientist Willin Kerman aboard. The dock won't be operational until I can get an engineer aboard; unfortunately, the only engineer currently available is Ceri, who's currently running things aboard LSV House Atreides in higher Ike orbit. I may still send her that way; grabbing a third star has done much to offset the productivity penalty I get from her truly exceptionally high stupidity rating...

Lots of stuff in holding patterns at this point. I've got the two Ike surveys to conduct and with things the way they are, I might get to do both of those later today. I need to print up a return-to-Kerbin craft at Scan Queen at some point for an exploration contract; that will likely happen after the second Hound finishes. I am considering getting a new outpost crew up and ready to go, which would involve flights to Mun and Minmus at a minimum; I do have a tourist heading to Mun and several en route to Minmus right now, so that might actually not be a terrible use of my time, all things considered.

The Ray Charles 7 telescope still won't achieve final position for another 120 days...we'll see if I finish that mission up before 1.7 drops...