What did you do in KSP1 today?

Jett_Quasar · May 25, 2019

Today I hopped back on the Star Wars bandwagon...

- Jett

purpleivan · May 25, 2019

After 158 days (ingame time) and 3 1/2 months for me, my "little" trip around the planet that is the Kerbin Sorta-Circumnavigation came to an end today.

First a new aircraft "The Pelican" was sent out to refuel the boat for the last, short leg.

It's a great little plane that is a slightly modified version of one I flew few days ago (The Duck) that was terrible and is the easiest plane to land I've made. Amazing what an extra fuel tank and and snapping off some wing will do.

After being refuelled the boat headed for the KSC, which they made before the end of the day. It felt good when this familiar sight came into view.

Bob seemed especially pleased to be back.

The whole crew made it back to base safely, after the ridiculously long and overcomplicated trip.

Amazing what things come out of failed attempts at challenge I blame you @herbal space program .

Now finally I can get back to real life and... oh... what... I've got to crack on with Lost on Laythe, The Truth Can Now Be Told and The Tinfoil Times.

Oh... okay then, real life can wait I guess.

Edited May 26, 2019 by purpleivan

JammedDiskDrive · May 25, 2019

Nothing spectacular today, just launched an entire station to Minmus. Said station is the MS1-"Duran", a Minmus research station parked in a polar orbit. Station in question is this big guy:

Can house 33 kerbs at max capacity, here's another angle:

ARS · May 25, 2019

In preparation of upcoming Breaking Ground DLC, a variety of exploration vehicle is being tested. This one is a massive flying base, The Flying Fox, equipped with science lab, crew quarters, and cargo bay for rovers. It's intended to go to faraway places and unpacked into a science base once it's landed, and can be repacked again to fly into another destination

Another one is a two-man exploration craft, The Buzzing Mosquito is a tiny jet equipped with nuclear thermal jet, giving it infinite range, perfect for those science contracts

And the last, one of the fish in the ocean is unlike the others... The Albacore is a two-man submersible suited for underwater exploration and science

Castille7 · May 25, 2019

4 hours ago, Jett_Quasar said:

Today I hopped back on the Star Wars bandwagon...

Incredible work man on the Craft and Video........Enjoyed it! :cool:

Triop · May 25, 2019

7 hours ago, ARS said:

:rep: :rep: :rep: :rep: :rep: :cool:

Today, I went for a walk...

Edited May 25, 2019 by Triop

Milesy · May 25, 2019

Got one of my ksp bucket list items out the way today by landing a space plane on Ike (to self refuel), Duna then landed back on the Kerbin runway. Not exactly ksp pro stuff but it was a world first for me and it went well, apart from realizing my main rear wheels were on backwards, doh.

Triop · May 25, 2019

Walker ~~Texas Ranger~~

Puggonaut · May 25, 2019

Pipcard · May 26, 2019

The interplanetary freighter Nozomi Maru arrived with the first Modular Interplanetary Kolonization Units for Akagi Base on Duna, along with two wheeled mining vehicles designed to refuel landers with KIS fuel pipes.

WiM-11 miner and Akagi Base (no Kerbals yet)

There was an issue with landing the WiM-12 miner on Iwaki Base (already with 6 Kerbals) on Ike: the skycrane had its engines too close, so it didn't produce any thrust. So the already-established WiM-8 miner/tanker was used as a mega-skycrane.

After one of the wheels was repaired, WiM-12 drove to Iwaki Base.

scottadges · May 26, 2019

10 hours ago, ARS said:

I love these! Great use of minimal design to create really compact, efficient vehicles.

What mod are the wings from in your fighter jet above? Is that from Airplane Plus?

ARS · May 26, 2019

33 minutes ago, scottadges said:

What mod are the wings from in your fighter jet above? Is that from Airplane Plus?

It's from OPT legacy pack

Triop · May 26, 2019

@Puggonaut Me:

Hotel26 · May 26, 2019

I found a really good payload for this Spunk, reusable launcher, which I built some time ago, basing it on an original (modded) work by @Pthigrivi:

and have, as a result, been doing a long series of multiple launches, which has had me practising the return to KSC. Finally, got one back for a runway landing! (Corks popping!)

Spunk can land downrange under chutes for an apoaptic launch. Or a geared landing if it maneuvers close enough to my downrange recovery center (with flat landing sites) on the next promontory east of KSC.

But after a payload launch with full circularization (e.g. my new DSRN V), an attempt to land on the KSC runway is mandatory! This one was exciting. I lowered apoapsis on the opposite side of Kerbin to only 55km instead of my usual 50. Then burned a hard retro just past the tip of India [forgot the real name] aiming a splashdown just a but further east than Koney Island (the one with the Island airfield). Forgot that on such a steep approach the trajectory would not change hardly at all, so got a good, fast overshoot. Just under 4km altitude, had it slowed enough to gingerly maneuver into an upward loop, converting excess energy into altitude and putting it onto a very high approach to KSC R27. And a minute or two's fuel on low power setting still in the tanks to operate the twin Vector gimbals. Spunk likes a very healthy 140 m/s on approach, just under max gear speed...

One more benefit of operating a reusable launcher is that, when you miss and land out, my rules require a separate craft carrying kerbals to land in the vicinity to effect the recovery. (Vicinity equals, "must be able to [] switch to the ~~wreck~~ asset...) This gives me a lot of incentive to fly a VTOL to the crash site. Last trip was up in the foothills on the other side of the mountains west of KSC. Lots of practice with the transition in and out of hover! VTOLs have no trouble with air-sea rescue, too. Fun.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Hotel26

Frank_G · May 26, 2019

Starting to design a science station for munar and minmus missions, based on my Kerbin Orbital One parts. It can be delivered by spaceplane and comes with almost 1.000 m/s of Delta V to adjust orbit or fly from Mün to Minmus on its own. I plan to have resource extraction sites on both moons, to refuel the station. I might wait with the launch till "Breaking Ground" is out though, to have storage for surface science on board.

May 26, 2019

Tested the all-in-one base (based on @Hotel26's design) on the Mun. It works nicely although there's a bit of cosmetic tweaking that could still be done (I should rotate and adjust the tower with the panels so they don't interfere with each other). It features triple surface harvesters, an ISRU, remote probe control capability, comms, a mobile science lab, three Claws with plenty of clearance for docking vessels, and accommodations for 20 kerbals.

It was able to make the journey from LKO to the Mun's surface under its own power, with enough dV left to do short hop into a more level landing site.

Edit: here by the way would be a nice use for the Breaking Ground rotor: make the tower rotatable so I could always get the solar panels in optimal orientation to the sun.

(Of course now I can just rotate the craft so that the big panels are aligned N-S like I did here but that's not as cool...)

Edited May 26, 2019 by Guest

Hotel26 · May 26, 2019

20 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

a more level landing site

Bravo all of the above and well done.

(A point of interest is that the 3-tower layout emanates from the tendency of a single tower to topple over after an unlucky landing! It does also make the docking-claw-with-clearance concept more palatable. I'm definitely going to adopt your hexagonal arrangement!)

Edited May 26, 2019 by Hotel26

MisterKerman · May 26, 2019

@Frank_G I really like what you did to the arms of your space station. I'm stealing that. Yours looks really legit. Thanks.

RealKerbal3x · May 26, 2019

I did something that had been long overdue:

Yes, I sent a little probe to Duna, only a year and a half after I bought the game . This isn't in my main save, because in there I have a 'Prime Directive' that prevents me from timewarping too far into the future, but I have now learnt the Triad of KSP: Orbital rendezvous, landing and interplanetary transfers.

Frank_G · May 26, 2019

2 hours ago, MisterKerman said:

@Frank_G I really like what you did to the arms of your space station. I'm stealing that. Yours looks really legit. Thanks.

Thank you very much and have fun experimenting with that design. It is quite wobbly at the moment, due to using jr. docking ports. If you try building your own trusses, consider upgrading the design. Maybe a third port will compensate better.

Here is another post of the mentioned Kerbin Orbital Station, from a few days back. Enjoy :

Edited May 26, 2019 by Frank_G

MisterKerman · May 26, 2019

@Frank_G I'll probably stick with senior ports for space station component connections. The arm structures look really great though. I never thought to panel over 45° tilted modular girder segments. It looks so good.