What did you do in KSP1 today?

[capi3101]

6 hours ago, Gunnerline said:

*Ed. Note:  It's a long, probably very boring story involving a 4X game called Stellaris. 

Ah, I'm familar with Stellaris - itself a game that's far more interesting in the beginning than towards the end, in my own experience. Oughta finish it one of these days; I hear they throw a twist at you in the last hundred years or so. I'm in that period in my present game but it has yet to happen, mainly on account of I'm playing KSP and Surviving Mars at the moment.

Anyway...

 

(1.6.1) Slower day yesterday than the weekend (thank God) mostly spent getting everything back on track now that the Beer Can 7 launch from Eve's surface is finished up. The day began with the completion of a "colonization" mission at the South Base outpost near KSC. Tourists Robro and Beagun are both dumb as stumps, so I won't be converting them to crew - I'll experiment with sending them back to KSC one I get an opportunity since there's very little risk and difficulty in doing so. Next up, I went ahead and docked Lusitania up to space station Munport, the craft having been dispatched to refuel the station's Spamcan 7a lander, which itself had docked to the station late in the day on Sunday. Once Lusitania was docked up, Necessary Evil (already docked at the station) took on fuel supplies from the station's stores, after which Bob along with pilot Patrod Kerman and scientist Tefrod Kerman - the occupants of the aforementioned lander, boarded. Necessary Evil then departed Munport and made a burn to take her to Kerbin; she'll arrive at periapsis in about eight hours owing to crummy timing of the burn. The plan is for Necessary Evil to head to Minmus next, probably stopping off at space station Kerbinport to refuel before heading out that way.

With her jobs done over Eve prior to the Beer Can launch, the next order of business was for LSV House Corrino to warp home to Kerbin. I decided, though, to do an experiment and had the ship warp out to Jool instead. Despite arriving at about 17,000 m/s, it only took four warpbacks to bring Corrino's speed down enough to enter a 6,198.7 x 5,678.3 kilometer, 2.31° inclined Jool orbit. Once in orbit, I had J.G. Backus detach from Corrino and pilot Aldler Kerman went on EVA.

Come on, Aldler - you can do it, let go of the ladder now. If you do it, I'll give you a quarter...

Aldler jetpacked over to Corrino and entered one of the Bigby workshops, fulfilling the current exploration contract to transfer a kerbal between two ships over Jool. J. G. Backus was quickly brought back to dock with Corrino and Aldler resumed his seat in the command capsule. The new exploration contract finally authorizes landings on Bop - I have to land, plant a flag and return a craft from the surface, all things that will happen as soon as I can get LSV House Atreides out that way to deliver the scheduled outpost and crew.

Speaking of House Atreides, the very next thing that happened after Aldler's EVA was the ship's warp to Gilly from Eve orbit, having finished delivery of engineer Matdon Kerman to the Caue Serpente Yards in orbit prior to the Beer Can launch. As is typical for a Gilly warp, I bled off as much speed as I could over Eve before heading out that way at about 40% power. The ship arrived in Gilly's SOI at a blistering 180 m/s and the decision was quickly made to use a mode of entry that I'd previous considered - that of delivering a utility vehicle to un-dock and enter orbit under its own power while the mother ship either attempted to enter orbit on its own later or just head on out. To that end, fuel stores were loaded aboard Gilligan, the ship departed and made an immediate burn to take her speed down low enough to enter orbit, which didn't take much to accomplish - Gilligan is now en route to the Samwell Tarly Yards in Gilly orbit and is scheduled for arrival in another five hours or so. Meanwhile, I attempted to get Atreides into orbit.

Owing to the ship's mass and the fact that it's off-center with the engines thanks to the placement of the workshop, this was all the more I could get out of the conventional engines without tumbling. Though looking at this pic, it might've helped if I'd used the autopilots...

I did ultimately get House Atreides into a 53.7 x 20.0 kilometer, 0.21° inclined orbit over Gilly. Took two more burns to get that done, though - the initial burn put her on a severely inclined retrograde suborbital trajectory that at least had me coming up on apoapsis. The burns didn't happen in rapid succession, of course - it's Gilly we're talking about. Still, I'm just as happy to have the ship in orbit and will be making a third burn to put her in a proper 20x20 orbit when she comes up to periapsis in a few hours.

After ordering up a Cigar 7 Eve Descent Module at the Caue Serpente Yards (finishes about 3.5 hours) and having the Fred Savage 7 MOLE laboratory unit depart the Dystopia Planitia shipyard over Kerbin with pilot Rodhat Kerman aboard, St. Simeon Salus arrived at space station Eveport.

I can't believe these people leaving their Beer Cans all over the damn place...

The probe brought the Beer Can 7 payload and its passengers into dock safely. Tourists Haiald, Neilfrid, Lefel, Newrigh and Lizemone Kerman - five brave souls who dared to visit Eve's surface and lived to tell the tale - boarded Strange Cargo docked at the station, while engineer Luddorf Kerman (himself a rescuee from the surface) boarded Next Objective also docked at the station. After making sure they were fueled, both ferry ships departed the station and burned to make rendezvous with LSV House Harkonnen in low Eve orbit.

Eridred says "That's the last time I'm leaving the motor running. Five minutes to run in and grab groceries, my green ass...you guys have been gone for over thirty days..."

Both Strange Cargo and Next Objective made the rendezvous with Harkonnen, with both ships docking safely last thing last night (though for Strange Cargo it was a fairly near thing, the ship only having about 300 m/s of fuel remaining upon rendevzous - didn't help that I boned up the approach twice). Fred Savage also came into dock safely at Kerbinport while the two ferries were en route.

So far this morning I had just enough time to bring House Corrino back to Kerbin from Jool, the ship arriving at about 5,800 m/s and settling into a 485.9 x 480.4 kilometer, 0.87° inclined orbit after nine warpbacks. I also had time enough to make sure that Aldler and rescuee scientist Malgar Kerman were aboard J.G. Backus and that the ship was fully fueled. The plan for today is to send Backus over to Kerbinport to deliver Malgar for return to the surface and to then replenish Corrino's supplies. She doesn't need all that much. The Cigar at CSY is ready and I need to deliver it to Eveport so that everything's set up for the next manned expedition to Eve's surface (whenever that will be), and I need to send House Harkonnen to Kerbin to bring the tourists home; she's been loitering in orbit for that sole purpose for quite some time now (still need to get a staff engineer aboard so I can use her as something other than a warp ferry). I also hope to deliver engineer Macnie Kerman to the Samwell Tarly Yards today and get Gilligan back to House Atreides so I can send the ship on to Bop, especially now that I'm go for landings there. Still got crew shuffling going on - and part of that is going to involve me sending up an Auk XI 10-passenger spaceplane to Kerbinport. Got staff to get up there, going to have tourists and rescuees heading down pretty soon. Definitely busy overall at the moment.

[billbobjebkirk]

Started taking steps towards closing down my beloved 1.2.2 save, by performing my first Mun Landing in 5 years and setting the stage for a full scale Munar Expedition!

 

Simulations show that my lander can make the roundtrip to and from the surface:

 

Launching the Munar Transfer Vehicle into orbit:

 

Sending the Surface Habitat to the Mun:

 

Launching Mun Lander

 

Now the full stack is in orbit and ready for its crew! Time to return to the Mun!

[XLjedi]

On 7/21/2019 at 8:45 PM, Bedazzled said:

[snip]

5. Lander away

6. Lander de-orbits

7. Approaching touchdown, some folk in Houston are turning blue

[snip]

 

LOL!!  ...loved this part!  

Kerbals are like... Apollo, Shmollo!  We'll show you how it's supposed to be done! 

 

[Cavscout74]

15 hours ago, capi3101 said:

My advice - don't dump the airbrakes. Seriously - keep them all the way to the ground (and keep them deployed the whole time), then dump them if you must. First hand experience on this one.

Yeah, that was where it all went completely wrong.  I foolishly thought the semi-deployed drogue & main chutes had enough drag to keep the heatshield end down.  Considering the brakes barely kept it that way, I should have known better. 

[Cavscout74]

What time I had in KSP today, I spent in my alternate save where I'm trying to minimize my installed mods, I did an Apollo mission to Mun.  It only took 2 tries due to the LES getting stuck the first time & smashing the nose docking port & parachutes when it did unstick.  I'm sticking most of the pics in a spoiler since there are a bunch

Spoiler

In orbit, jettisoning the fairing of the MEM

Docking with the MEM

Undocking the MEM & preparing to land

Guess what pic I didn't take?  The flag planting off course!!  MEM upper stage lifting off to redock with CM

Heading home

Now we're committed

Moments before splashdown

[Castille7]

When things go wrong 

I've added Convert -O- Trons to the shuttles, Docked to Kerbol Explorer 172 and noticed I have zero Monopropellant?? So maybe convert some Ore? Nope....zero Ore! 

[Ratwerke_Actual]

Continuing my JNSQ hard mode career (No reverts/permadeath),

Today I completed another Apollo style mission. 1 launch, Both moons.

A video will follow soon.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Ratwerke_Actual
more words

[ash73]

Thought I'd wrap up my tribute to Apollo with a similar mission to Duna.

Lift-off!

Leaving orbit

CM docking with the lander

Aero braking in the Duna atmosphere

Lander is away

On finals

Money shot

Returning to orbit

Docking with the CM

Arriving home

[ash73]

7 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

What time I had in KSP today, I spent in my alternate save where I'm trying to minimize my installed mods, I did an Apollo mission to Mun...

 

Nice build, very realistic! Enjoyed the pics.

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Yesterday saw the continuation of my efforts to get back to business in the wake of this past Sunday's launch of the Beer Can 7 from the surface of Eve. The day began at the Caue Serpente Yards in Eve orbit, where engineer had Matdon Kerman completed the print of a Cigar 7 Eve Descent Module right before the close of business on Monday. The module was fueled from the station's stores and launched for a rendezvous with space station Eveport 34 minutes later. In the interim, supplies of fuel, Rocket Parts and Xenon Gas were sent from the South Base outpost near KSC to LSV House Corrino recently returned to Kerbin's orbit. J.G. Backus also departed Corrino headed for space station Kerbinport, rendezvousing and docking with the station just before the Cigar made its rendezvous with Eveport. The Cigar targeted the far-end port of the Beer Can 7 (itself docked to St. Simeon Salus, which was in turn docked to Eveport) and docked safely.

I look at this picture and wonder if someone's trying to compensate for something, but then I'm afraid that someone just might be me...

The Cigar's docking with the Beer Can at Eveport means that I can send down six more Kerbals to the surface any time I wish. Watch the next tourist expedition have seven surface-bound folks...

With both Strange Cargo and Next Objective having safely docked on Monday, the next order of business was to get LSV House Harkonnen back to Kerbin from Eve orbit. Having had success with using Jool to bleed off unnecessary speed for House Corrino on Monday, I went ahead and had Harkonnen warp there first, where she established an 8,491.8 x 7,144.2, 4.08° inclined layover orbit after arriving at about 18 kps and requiring six warpbacks to bleed off enough speed. While this was still ongoing, LSV House Atreides in orbit of Gilly circularized her equatorial orbit around 20 kilometers, and Necessary Evil returned to Kerbin from her recent outing to Mun; her post-aerobraking burn took her to rendezvous with Kerbinport about 40 minutes later. Having then found a relative minimum orbital speed for Kerbin while still over Jool, House Harkonnen conducted her final warp to Kerbin; she arrived at 1,722 m/s, slow enough to enter orbit directly without warpbacks, establishing herself at 64.0.4 x 614.6 kilometers, 5.17° inclination. Harkonnen supplied Strange Cargo and Next Objective with as much available fuel as possible, only bringing the two ferry ships up to about 87% of their maximum fuel supplies, which was still more than enough fuel to get my tourists back to Kerbinport. Both Strange Cargo and Next Objective departed and set course for Kerbinport, with South Base shooting up fuel supplies to Harkonnen in the interim. The final rendezvous of Necessary Evil, Next Objective and Strange Cargo (in that order) with Kerbinport all happened in rapid succession, and all three craft docked safely.

Kerbinport with all of her ships in dock. Haven't seen this state of affairs in a while. Means my frame rate in vicinity of the station is kinda crappy at the moment...

Last big piece of news for yesterday was the arrival of Gilligan at the Samwell Tarly Yards in orbit of Gilly. After docking safely, engineer Macnie Kerman took her position as the shipyard's new chief engineer, and Gilligan was replenished with the very small amount of fuel supplies she needed from the station's stores before departing to rendezvous with House Atreides. Rendezvous is set for 65 minutes from now, relatively fast for Gilly. I did a supply mass driver shot next between the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on Eve and the Caue Serpente Yards, and then another one between the Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly's Surface and STY. With supplies available, Macnie got to work printing up a ScanSat probe I'll be using to fulfill a satellite contract over Gilly; printing is only expected to take about an hour.

The very last thing that happened yesterday was Necessary Evil's departure from Kerbinport after taking on fuel and offloading her passengers to the station; she made the burn for Minmus just this morning and will arrive at periapsis over the minty moon in a little over seven days from now. South Base sent up what fuel supplies it had left to Kerbinport after Necessary Evil's departure. With the recent supply shots to House Corrino and House Harkonnen, there wasn't much left to send up - not enough to fully resupply Kerbinport at any rate. I'll have to spend some time replenishing the stores at South Base to finish the resupply later (defining later as "before I have to send out another ship from the station, preferably").

My efforts to rotate my staff within Kerbin's SOI continued earlier this morning. Pilot Jedbrett Kerman along with scientists Lageremy, Nedmore and Thommon Kerman and engineers Beamon, Monty and Necale Kerman boarded an Auk XI 10-passenger spaceplane, which took off from KSC 09 and burned for a rendezvous with Kerbinport. That rendezvous is scheduled to take place in just over five minutes from now, and will be the first thing I'll attend to in my next session. The Auk will deliver my staff folks to the space station (going to have to figure out where to berth everybody once it gets there) and will then haul down my tourists and rescuees recently returned from Eve, of which there are ten (hence a ten-passenger craft for the job, obviously). Assuming the plane returns safely to KSC (and it damn well should), I'll clear two tourist contracts, two rescue contracts and an orbital sci contract all at once. Five in one ain't bad. I'll be sending Backus back to Harkonnen later on with Beamon aboard; I plan to make her chief engineer aboard Harkonnen, which has been lacking in staff for a while now. I also plan on sending Atreides on to Bop as soon as Gilligan docks up; she's been carrying an outpost crew during her latest set of exploits and at this point they've hit enough of the sights to probably reach five-star status once I get the Bop surface outpost set up - the next big event on the agenda. Time permitting I can begin shuffling my crews at Minmus so that when Necessary Evil arrives at space station Minmusport all that will need to happen is a quick refuel and embarkation of the folks heading for home before she leaves again. Going to be bringing the entire original crew of the Deepwater Horizon outpost and some extra folks from the Non Mentha Yards home. 

And then with five new contracts today, I'll have to see where I'm going from here. Probably going to have at least some bearing on what all happens next...

 

[Tw1]

I discovered trains are a whole lot of trouble

Continued to test out that helicopter. I don't think I've ever bothered landing on this building before. 

And learnt that ground experiments have to be within 20m of the control base (that doesn't seem to be mentioned somewhere obvious?) 

Lastly, I did a test mission of my Apollo Capsule to reassure the kerbals it was safe to land. The Apollo mission has been in space for several days now. 

I have a setup which uses the hinges to hide the "floats" away inside,  and it is so cool 

Edited July 25, 2019 by Tw1

[Cavscout74]

I got a new rescue contract in my current career.  I was a little surprised when I saw the name.  Then to add to the surprise, it says to "return her safely to Kerbin"   

[Delay]

25 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

I was a little surprised when I saw the name.

Not sure whether I'd accept that one.

[Cavscout74]

1 hour ago, Delay said:

Not sure whether I'd accept that one.

I debated it for a while.  I'll probably end up changing her name after the rescue mission - I already have two other active rescue contracts (for a pilot & a scientist) so Stalin the engineer completes another complete crew.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Cavscout74

[RizzoTheRat]

I do love a nice resonant orbit, 2 KomSats in positions and the third about to boost in to it's final orbit.

[Vanamonde]

Made my first prop plane. Actually flies pretty well, though runs out of fuel after just a few minutes. 

[KSP lover5]

Where do you find the propellers?

[GDJ]

1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

Made my first prop plane. Actually flies pretty well, though runs out of fuel after just a few minutes. 

A good first attempt grasshopper.

[Vanamonde]

1 hour ago, KSP lover5 said:

Where do you find the propellers?

They are part of the Breaking Ground expansion. You put the blade parts on the engine part. 

[Johnster_Space_Program]

Today in KSP I recreated the Friendship 7/Mercury-Atlas 6 John Glenn mission as a making history mission and did some other things!

[Cavscout74]

After the complete & utter failure of my 2-seat Eve lander, I started from scratch with a single seater.  Tonight was just sandbox testing.  First test came close but just about the time I started to breath a little easier, everything started exploding.  Second try with redesigned heat shielding went better - although I forgot one slightly important thing which wrecked my launch attempt.  There are 3 AV-R8 fins on the core engine stage & for entry, I turned the control sliders to negative since the fins were flying backwards.  Problem is, I forgot to set them back positive for launch.  I lost control & destroyed several radial boosters in the process, and when I did regain control, I was climbing on a westerly heading.  Even then I came close to clearing the atmosphere - upper stage ran dry with an Ap around 88 km, so I'm pretty sure if I'd had all my boosters & a good climb profile, it could have made orbit.  I started adding the ladders to get down to the surface, but then KSP turned into a slide show in the VAB, freezing for a few seconds every few seconds, and I didn't really have more time for KSP tonight anyway, so I'll have to try another test flight tomorrow.  
 

Spoiler

KSC Launch - this one DOES make orbit (~145km in fact) with a few dV to spare.  The transfer stage's nuclear lightbulb drive just over 3 km/s dV to get to Eve with

First attempt, with the individual engine heatshields.  Keeping it rotating through reentry was working pretty good till around 40-45km when I lost rotation authority & then all the hardpoints started exploding, along with parachutes & airbrakes

Redesign with an inflatable shield on the bottom.  Only lost one airbrake this time

Drogues deployed

Heatshields jettisoned.  I made sure I had enough sepratrons - although the bottom was still marginal.  It'll be safer to wait till I deploy the main chutes next time.

Almost down.  I need a few more chutes too, descent was at 6.8 m/s.  I used a touch of thrust right before landing to get it under 5 m/s

Safely landed, chutes jettisoned.   This test version doesn't have ladders installed yet

Upper stage almost escaping Eve

 

[Reinhart Mk.1]

Idk I just thought this was different and cool

 

[Guest]

I'm still getting the expedition Gilly stuff into LKO since every launcher so far has had trouble

[KSP lover5]

2 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

They are part of the Breaking Ground expansion. You put the blade parts on the engine part

Ok thanks

[Gunnerline]

36 minutes ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

Idk I just thought this was different and cool

And you were most correct!

 

Greetings starfarers and space-suit wearers, I hope your adventures in KSP have been fruitful, or at the very least, morbidly entertaining.  The docket for my space program was rather anemic on unusual missions or strange places, largely due to upkeep and maintenance of the various stations and even a munar base!  First, the final module of the Munar Gateway Complex, hereafter referred to by its official christening, Object Not Referenced, was finally connected:

What even is this rocket?  I don't even.  I can only imagine @CobaltWolf is proud of these shenanigans.  Or horrified at what I've done to his creations.

There is very little that is cooler than watching the fairings on a Saturn V derivative open up like some sort of space kraken.

A Block 1 AARDV from Bluedog Design Bureau.

The next best thing to being on the Mun itself!

Additionally, the munar base, Do Not Leave Blank was, I thought in dire need of additional leg room.  When you are stranded enduring tolerating  adventuring munar-side, it's important to make sure you have as many creature comforts as budgets (and pilot skill, >.>) can allow.  To that end, the munar base was extended with a habitation module specifically to provide better living accommodations to our brave munar explorers:

 

Oh, and I decided to try out some visual overhauls to the game while practicing my space shuttle piloting: