What did you do in KSP1 today?

[NeoDarkF]

Preparing thumbnail for special on my channel.

Yeah, another Apollo 11

Congrats for reaching 2000 pages!

[ResonantWaves]

THE THREAD HAS REACHED 2001 PAGES!

'My god...it's full of posts...'

 

Edited July 19, 2019 by ResonantWaves

[RealKerbal3x]

15 minutes ago, ResonantWaves said:

'My god...it's full of posts...'

[Gunnerline]

With my primary Minmus station, the Hubris II, now fully operational, and having paid for itself through contract and science work, it was time to begin the next phase of my development of the Minmus Exploration Complex:  preparing for surface-based habitation.  To this end, it was finally time for me to break out the K&K Planetary Base Systems (courtesy of @Nils277) that had been sitting unused in my assembly plant since unlocking them.

I've never used the K&K system before, so the first thing to try out was how to stack the would-be future bases onto rockets, and what their deployment into a sphere of influence might require.  The best way to go about this, as I interpreted my goals, was to strap a test facility shaped like a bus onto a small rocket and launch it towards the green meadows to the west of the KSC, like some sort of bizarre public transit ballistic missile:

♪ Come on!  Come on!  Come on!  Let's go!  Space Truckin'! ♪

The test was quite successful, I assure you.

Additionally, I decided to try out the Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit, from @benjee10 :

Where are we, and where did our ailerons go?

You may notice the lack of control surfaces and the orbiter manipulator arm sadly sticking out of the bottom of my shuttle.  It was not a soft landing.  Turns out the orbiter is hard to land, especially when you undershoot your reentry envelope by ~400km.  Who knew?  Still, the brochure said the shuttle was "partially reusable."  And no one died, so it's at least somewhere between a good and great landing.

And, naturally, a Munar mission was quite appropriate:

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

I began settlement operations on Moho. Since it is the most difficult planet to get to, I'll need to be careful in my mission plans.

 

I already have a lot of relays in orbit around the planet, so I got plenty of good coverage there. However, now was the time for me to get serious. After landing a self-mining ore transport (for later use) on the surface, I deployed a mobile base in the highlands

• Yes, the Moho mobile base is the same thing as the Eeloo mobile base; but who am I to argue if the delivery rocket design works for Moho? 
  • Anybody wants the craft file, just ask me (has MJ).

 

Once I construct Moho Station in low orbit around the planet, I can start sending people and landers there. 

[fulgur]

Aside from my career mode (which I am not reporting here as I have a mission report), I messed around with the props and got this little craft to 200m/s.

Actually, the one which went that fast had 6 blades per prop. I now feel I understand how to fly propellor planes well. It involves a lot of fiddling with deployment with CAPSLOCK on and having the [F12] view on all the time.

Edited July 19, 2019 by fulgur

[Cavscout74]

I had a happy accident while testing a fuel rover.  It's intended for Laythe, and I was concerned with how it would handle entry & landing (especially if I had enough 'chutes).  Since both KSC & the dessert launch site were busy putting Jool missions into orbit, I launched a test rocket out of Woomerang with the rover.  My target was the same continent as the desert launch site, I wasn't actually aiming for anything but a ground landing.  After shedding the fairing - which was an improvised heat shield & popping the drogues, I looked around and found:

Landed <10km from the runway.  So I also tested out my rover driving cross country.  I can get up to around 32 m/s.  It's not recommended on anything but perfectly flat ground, but it can do it.  Also, it is pretty durable, even when flipping length-wise  at 32 m/s. I lost the front winch & fuel hose, and everything got bent a little (the driver compartment now looks down as much as forwards) but it still drove mostly straight, still could reach about 32 m/s

I also got my Laythe ocean base docked with the tug & on its way to the jewel of Jool.  That only took a 16 minute burn with the Lightbulb drive.  And it was too wobbly at the docking port to use physics warp.

Since I had most of the tech unlocked & got a lucky "Test Rapier engine..." contract, I went ahead & got the first Lightning II spaceplane launched to go to Laythe. 

Summer Kerman got the "joy" of transferring to the pilot reentry pod for the trip back to KSC once she had the Lightning refueled & ready for the transfer.

She pulled off a pretty nice landing (a few km east of KSC) but apparently something is less buoyant now than version 1.5, because upon splashdown she started to sink & had to crawl out of the structure.  Previous version had Jeb splash down & float just fine.

[Tw1]

 

I learnt helicopters are cool, but another level of difficulty.

It may just be the one I made wasn't very good.

This helicopter didn't want to stay put, and had to be pulled back into place.

Mistakes were made

I also re-learnt that landing a plane on a very short target is hard. Fortunately, I found another method to achieve the task at hand.

 

(Someone needs to submit a space odyssey replica before the 2001th page is out)

Edited July 19, 2019 by Tw1

[capi3101]

1 hour ago, Cavscout74 said:

I had a happy accident while testing a fuel rover.  It's intended for Laythe, and I was concerned with how it would handle entry & landing (especially if I had enough 'chutes).  Since both KSC & the dessert launch site were busy putting Jool missions into orbit, I launched a test rocket out of Woomerang with the rover.  My target was the same continent as the desert launch site, I wasn't actually aiming for anything but a ground landing.  After shedding the fairing - which was an improvised heat shield & popping the drogues, I looked around and found:

Landed <10km from the runway.  So I also tested out my rover driving cross country.  I can get up to around 32 m/s.  It's not recommended on anything but perfectly flat ground, but it can do it.  Also, it is pretty durable, even when flipping length-wise  at 32 m/s. I lost the front winch & fuel hose, and everything got bent a little (the driver compartment now looks down as much as forwards) but it still drove mostly straight, still could reach about 32 m/s

 

32 m/s is the max speed of each of the Buffalo wheels (unless you're driving downhill, of course - but even then they tend not to go too much fast than that).

Your design doesn't look too much different from my TBD 7d rover, which is hardly a surprise since it's also made out of Buffalo parts. Do yourself a favor and put a supply of Equipment in one of the chassis parts - that way you can reconfigure it to haul other things (like ore or what have you) if you ever have the need to do so. Wagons rule.

Edited July 19, 2019 by capi3101

[Cavscout74]

12 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Do yourself a favor and put a supply of Equipment in one of the chassis parts

I didn't think of that.  I've got the extra chassis parts being used for Monoprop storage since it's a fuel tanker but having them split between equipment & monoprop would work.   It's not like anything I'm landing on Laythe will need >200 MP at once.  It's too late for the one already heading to Jool, but I'll have to update the design

[Guest]

Expedition Laythe and the Expedition Eeloo program has been put on hold and here is why:

The expedition Laythe mission has been taking a lot of my time and I don't want to be wasting any time on it for a long time so I will be not doing any more ksp for the weekend BUT I will resume the mission and complete it sometime on Monday-Tuesday if life allows!

[Sunius]

I just finished my greatest achievement so far: I rescued a kerbal from a reverse solar orbit. I built a ship with 18k delta-v (from Minmus orbit, as that's where my refueling station is) and had to save him within 19 years. The trip back was scary... I ran out of fuel when doing retrograde burn to get captured into orbit around Kerbin - I lacked 200 m/s or something like that. So I abandoned ship and continued burning retrograde using EVA thrusters, and managed to achieve a stable orbit with an apoapsis just below Minmus. That meant that I had to build a second rescue ship, but rescuing somebody from orbit around Kerbin was much easier and less stressful :).

[Geonovast]

That moment when you trip in front of an audience.

[Ratwerke_Actual]

Just a basic plane, testing propeller function.

(An earlier version...here )

Edited July 20, 2019 by Ratwerke_Actual
add link

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

That moment when you trip in front of an audience.

Better than getting stage fright at the last moment and running away in a panic. 

Spoiler

Or just missing the podium entirely... 

Spoiler

Shloop.

 

[JadeOfMaar]

I made a new experiment and gave it to the narrow-band scanner. This experiment is part of Rational Resources and only works while in vacuum and not landed, and it adds value to low Sun orbit probes, especially interstellar ones.

Edited July 20, 2019 by JadeOfMaar

[purpleivan]

I'd thought about posting something like me "Page 1999" image for number 2001, but came up blank.

Instead here's some from 2001: A Space Absurdity.

[Hotel26]

[Quite surprised to see that I haven't posted anything in this topic since 1995!!   (Page 1995, that is...)]

 

This is Hummingbird, descended from Sparrow, from Hawk and from "Duna Explorer" (author unknown, circa 2015):

 

I am eliminating all wheeled rovers (except on Kerbin) and all heavy equipment that require sky cranes for deployment.  Both Ladybug and Hummingbird refuel by landing on top of Goblin,  my refinery / fuel transporter / exploration base (16 krew)...  (RCS translators on Ladybug and Hummingbird make such "helipad" landings a piece of pavlova.)

                                                                                                                  

I did a reprise on Geist (left), which utilized a Whiplash slung under a NERV to get to space on just 600 kals LF to come up with Poltergeist (right):

  

Geist was built on the premise that asymmetric thrust from the Whiplash could be compensated for by purchase of the wings on the lower atmosphere, but the NERV should have the centerline for accurate thrust in space.

Poltergeist looks pretty innocuous, without the "kick sand in your face", muscle-bound appearance of Geist...

Here's what's "under the hood":

Now the premise is that the Whiplash gets centreline stage for max efficiency throughout the lower atmosphere launch phase...  And the NERV?

Well, the NERV is aligned through the CoM...  and it's backed up by a probe controller that shifts flight reference from the cockpit to the NERV thrustline.  Looks crab-like when it "flies" in space, but it's not really "flying" then, is it?  More like "scuttling"... 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by Hotel26

[Guest]

Today I started a new game in Real Solar System using SMURFF to adjust tanks and stuff for now. Still new at using real solar system type mods but this combo seems to load fast so thats good.

First mission to attempt to achieve a stable orbit around earth @_@!

[Castille7]

I've added more fuel to my SpaceTech craft to increase the amount of my refueling of Kerbol Explorer 172 located in LMO. I think the craft looks much better with the extra Tanks. Previous refueling was taking very long with just small amounts per trip. Here I have made my first landing on Minmus and it was done VTOL, this seems to be the most safe way to land on Minmus.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Castille7

[Guest]

wow this puts a new perspective on LOW earth orbit D:

100km should be outside the atmosphere in Real Solar System right? @_@?? seems super low! but im loving it so far!

Edited July 20, 2019 by Guest

[KerikBalm]

^{My dedicated 3x +25% gravity Duna SSTO transport finally accomplished its design goal of lifting a 38 ton payload from Duna sea level (or close to it) to orbit (1750 m/s), and then down to a safe landing.}

^{The margins were thin:}

 

[Xurkitree]

Today I finished my Tekto landing and by extension, the Sarnus 5.

Landing was eventful to say the least. I couldn't get a group shot due to my lander slipping and sliding on the surface, so i quickly planted a flag and got back in.

I shouldn't have landed here but still.

I have NEVER seen a Science Def match my mood so hard wth

This has to be the silliest ascent I've ever done, but I'm literally jumping to Tekto orbit.My lander is unstable nose front and flips beyond 50m/s - but I can pick up enough vertical speed that I can slow down via drag to a stable speed, correct myself, burn and flip and still gain altitude overall. As my altitude increases I can burn for longer and longer and eventually I'll reach a near vacuum altitude when I continue the ascent normally.

Eventually i gained enough altitude to put myself into a high suborbital trajectory and circularised at Apoapsis.

[Lisias]

Well., finally some fun on working on TweakScale!

 

I'm gradually fixing and restoring some long time deactivated or unfinished support on TweakScale. And besides not always working as I expect, true is that this is rendering some good laughs these days.

Expect some news on TweakScale thread soon!

[Gunnerline]

Given the date of July 20th, I figured it would not be a proper KSP day without at least one Apollo Recreation!  So it was that I shot three brand new kerbals on the historic mission to thread the needle and land in one of the remaining biomes not explored on the Mun, the Canyons.  And no Apollo Recreation would be complete, in my eye, without a good Saturn V, courtesy of the Bluedog Design Bureau mod:

 

Unfortunately for my picture taking ways, I seem to do most of my best work in the dark.  Maybe I'm just a really lame vampire.