What did you do in KSP1 today?

[SwissSpace93]

Today i fixed my jool-1 Rockets (changed to Ion-Drive)

After that i messed arround doing Sceince at the Kerbal test Program:

88 Ion-Engines have the power to light up Kerbins Surface

 

The Kerbals are now blinded from the massive Engine light emissions (that probably can go through spaceship walls )

[PT]

I gave up on my adventures with space rocks...

... so I sent Boat to gather up Kerbs from all over Sonnah system...

...which made a dent even in 5k of nuclear deltaV so some aerobraking was employed...

...thankfully funds gathered from crew transfer milestones allowed me to refuel...

...and finally deliver all my stranded Kerbs to monstrosity I spent all my funds on...

...once engineers were delivered, my contraption upgraded itself with a mining/smelting module out of parts it carried up to space...

...turned out drills collided with terrain and had to be relocated, but with a horde of engineers it was not much of a problem...

...the problem turned out to be drills. Augers didn't work on asteroid, but ISRU drills mined Metal out of filthy space rocks so I thought the same will be true for planets. Nope. Thankfully I had some spare parts and few spare construction pads...

...after confirming that drill works, Bill swiftly mounted all of them in place...

..which worked perfectly until I ran out of electricity in daytime...

...thankfully it was just an unexpected eclipse...

...but otherwise I got myself self sustainable, and self upgradable, shipyard on a ugly planet with 0.1G at surface. Only limitation is propellant for built ships being limited to Lf/Ox and Lithium. Which simply means I gotta unlock more fancier engines.

 

[Guest]

If you wanna watch a video that doesn't use cheats,  I recommend @Stratzenblitz75's video on sol

 

[Pipcard]

Y51, D351 - The WiM-16 mining ship at Urlum (Outer Planets Mod) carrying the Aquamarine probe cluster

The first probe, Aquamarine-a, enters Urlum's atmosphere (had to disable Scatterer)

[Hotel26]

@Brikoleur   upon reflection, I think you have the preponderance of argument on your side here.

I think it's easily feasible to make a vehicle for the purpose of mining/refining on the surface and no reason not to make it auto-relocatable.  For the sub-category of mission in which it is a primary producer for space, it will never be optimally efficient by itself (not ruling out a bootstrap capability at a new destination) -- but there's no reason to couple a tanker to its design apart from being able to dock in some manner.  One tanker could conceivably, in fact, service multiple refineries.  Thus considered, the tanker is merely an optimization layer over the base system.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Hotel26

[Lisias]

I gone Old School today. Updated KAX to work on KSP 1.3.1 to 1.7.3. 

Vintage Propelators, scaled, on a metal fuselage. I love KSP!

(wanna try? KerbalX for the craft, Thread for the latest KAX, Curseforge for the latest TweakScale to work on 1.3.1).

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

Thus considered, the tanker is merely an optimization layer over the base system.

Yeah, it’s that annoying rocket equation again. Your tanker needs to be efficient or big.

— I am liking this drill/tanker more by the way. It is simpler to operate. There’s no fuss landing it precisely as any flat spot in the biome will do, no fuss doing docking manoeuvres on the ground with the wheel physics gremlins that come with that and physics warp, and the added flexibility of getting your conversion ratio exactly right at the orbital fueling station. That’s a lot of convenience gained for hauling about 2 extra tons of dry mass.

[PT]

I landed on moon...

..launching from another moon!

Current goals:

• get some credits as unlocking science parts bankrupted me again
• build random stuff to finish backlog of missions that block me from getting new ones

[Guest]

I finished work on Tantor. She is now on KerbalX: 

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/TANTOR-K15

Now working on what I think is my most ambitious orbital station ever. It'll go around Duna. It will have accommodations for 8 crew in hitchhiker cans, with 3 command seats, a science lab, and an improved version of the Duna lander that performed so well on the mission of the Argos. Maximal crew capacity is 14, but as by my self-imposed rules I'm only allowing a permanent crew of 8. I'm designing this with a quite a bit of role-playing -- I'm trying to make something that doesn't just work well in the game, but that would be somewhat pleasant and convenient for the kerbals in it as well. So I'm not blocking the windows, I'm making it so that it's easy to access your routine work area from your rest area without having to go through somebody else's work area, the command module has a view over the dock to help guide things, the noisy ISRU is as far from the occupied modules as possible, and so on. 

Here's the WIP -- I'm still going to make some changes and it's missing a bunch of little details, such as floodlights to make nighttime docking easier, indicator lights for the ISRU status, and so on:

[Zeiss Ikon]

 

 

(1.6.1, RSS/RO RP-1)

I had a sounding rocket contract that I could fill with the early, small hypergolic vehicle, so I remembered to get some screen shots.

The sustainer is actually already started (has to be, so it has stable propellants during the half second or more it takes to come up to thrust).  Due to the startup lag, however, you can't yet see the plume.

In this configuration, with empty payload bay, this rocket is good for about 96 km.

A fraction of a second after staging, the sustainer has already pulled away from the booster and the engine is at full thrust.

About a third of the way through the burn; the sustainer is supersonic.  Either there was a parameter change in the B9 Procedural Wing (Early) part since I installed 1.3.1 RSS/RO, or I finally hit on a fin shape that doesn't heat as badly -- in any case, these fins don't even get thermometer bars when passing through the Max-Q region just below 20 km at around Mach 2.

Two thirds of propellants consumed, bird is now around Mach 2 and nearing 20 km.  Either there was a parameter change in the B9 Procedural Wing (Early) part since I installed 1.3.1 RSS/RO, or I finally hit on a fin shape that doesn't heat as badly -- in any case, these fins don't even get thermometer bars when passing through the Max-Q region.  The very mild down side is that if I delete the payload section for a max altitude shot, the rocket is barely stable, but that configuration doesn't get flown much, since all the relevant contracts after the first couple are "X payload to Y km altitude".

Halfway to the top.  About two minutes after MECO, near 50 km. altitude.  Nothing that depends on wings for lift flies this high, though there are balloons that can get here.  They spend longer at altitude, but we're rapidly headed for their limits, and the next upgrade of this rocket (better engine, more thrust and longer burn, plus a better booster) will go well beyond the high altitude balloon realm into true space.

[PT]

It wörks!

Took few weeks to build and refuel. There were some issues with center of mass and ground slope...

So rapid departure was in order.

In meantime...

82 minute burn, followed by 52 minute course correction. I'm gonna let MJ take care of it while I bake a cake...

Edited October 6, 2019 by PT

[Cavscout74]

I got a lot done yesterday, but not a lot of screenshots to show for it.  I just unlocked the graviolli detector in my 20% science career, so I launched a probe to gather as much science in Kerbin, Mun & Minmus orbits as I could. 

I used my 1.8m Steamglider launch vehicle as the probe is pretty light.  The launcher was good for over 3000 m/s, easily enough to get the Ap I wanted.

I didn't bother with a 2nd stage, just put bigger fuel tanks on the probe, which were good for just over another 3000 m/s, plenty for getting to Mun & Minmus orbit & returning.

I spent a lot of time coasting with waiting for biome changes, so not much in the way of screenshots but it took most of my game time.

My other major project was to finally satisfy two tourists that had been part of a 6 tourist contract.  Everybody else was happy with Minmus or Mun, but these two just HAD to go into Kerbol orbit, so I built the Sunseeker - seats 2 in relative comfort (its a hab module rather than a pod), with enough dV to get it just out of Kerbin space & back again.  I actually built it so it reenters nose first - a final burn gets performed just after entering the upper atmosphere, then the engine gets staged away,  set SAS to prograde & wait till the chutes open

Mission accomplished!  Finally finishing that contract netted me over 200k funds and a nice little bump to reputation

[SwissSpace93]

Today i launched al Jool-1 Rockets into LKO

After this i get this nice Video about the four Rocket boosters, that dont want to fly to Jool

 

[Guest]

Launched and assembled DST-1. Now she's all set to go to Duna. 

Little action shot from orbital assembly, the lander delivering the dock module:

(Yes she's balanced even with the asymmetrical look, less than 0.02 kN thrust torque.)

Edited October 6, 2019 by Guest

[Pipcard]

Y51, D359 - WiM-16 arrives at Wal, the largest moon of Urlum (Outer Planets Mod)

It deploys the Aquamarine-c orbiter and the Aquamarine-d lander

Y51, D360 - Arrival at Wal's sub-moon, Tal, deploying the Aquamarine-e orbiter

and the Aquamarine-f lander

[Triop]

Today Jeb got stuck, again . . . . .

 

[NHunter]

I've begun exploring Narisse:

[Triop]

Today's visitor, Doctress Who . . .

'Woman can't park' jokes in 3, 2, 1...     

Tardis original made by @SaturnianBlue , thanks dude, great design.

source:

https://kerbalx.com/SaturnianBlue/TARDIS

Edited October 8, 2019 by Triop

[IkranMakto]

[Piper]

Today in KSP I fried my laptop.

Well technically it was two days ago, but it's still fried.  So, I had three ships returning from interplanetary missions, each carrying seven Kerbals, and instead of launching multiple ships to dock with them, I decided to build a "Rendezvous Station" and a single large SSTO shuttle that would be capable of carrying all of the Kerbals back to the surface in one shot.  After working on different designs for nearly a week I finally got one working that would do the job reliably (and safely), so I decided to launch one more test one in Krash to doubly make sure it works as intended.  During the launch to orbit, my screen goes insane and everything just stops.  Feeling the heat coming off the laptop my first thoughts are that it overheated, so I immediately turn it off, unplug it, and disconnect the battery.

It's been a couple of days now, and it still won't turn back on, and I fear it is completely done for.  I'm going to take off the cover and see if it's something repairable.  My biggest fear is it's the motherboard itself, but with the way it is behaving (repeatably turns on and then immediately turns off, with a long pause in between without anything appearing on the screen), I suspect it either is indeed the motherboard, or the CPU.

I just really hope I haven't lost all my stuff for good (thankfully, I don't think that is likely).  This KSP play-through has probably been my favorite so far, and I've been gearing up for my first manned missions to Jool and Eeloo, with some pretty new and ambitious designs (for me), and as I had mentioned been working on m first SSTO shuttle.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Piper

[DStaal]

I while back I posted dragging some experiments into place.  They've completed their run, so I sent up a ship to return them to Kerbin, and had one of the engineers working on setting up a long-term base nearby carry them over:

The ship design was the result of many tests, and was barely stable enough in reentry - in fact it started tumbling as it hit the lower atmosphere at ~Mach 3.5, but that was slow enough everything survived.  (Tumble really started when I lost probe-control to the plasma sheath - which also meant I lost the spin-stabilization.  Plan had been to leave it on SAS and have RCS help, but I missed the atmosphere on the return trajectory, and therefore had to do a powered deorbit.)

Brought in around 500 science, but I was hoping for an unlock of some of the saucer parts...

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Very busy weekend to report to y'all today. After my late report on Friday, my afternoon began with a refueling mass driver shot between the South Base outpost near KSC and LSV House Corrino in high Kerbin orbit, sending up fuel supplies and Rocket Parts from her recent print of M. A. Summers immediately prior to her return to Kerbin from Vall. SL Shai Hulud sent over replacement supplies of Xenon Gas and Exotic Matter for Corrino's Alcubierre Drive as well. The G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin craft that Corrino had hauled back from Vall burned down to a 100-kilometer equatorial orbit in preparation for entry, and Necessary Evil (also recently returned from Vall via Corrino) made a burn to take her to rendezvous with space station Kerbinport; flight time to rendezvous was 75 minutes. While en route to rendezvous, the G-LOC deorbited.

I don't think I'm going to agree with what Trajectories is telling me here...

The probe set down successfully 4.4 kilometers west-northwest of KSC, bringing the Vall exploration contract to a close. The replacement contract, contrary to my expectations, was to perform a flyby of Tylo and to do science while there. I had some tourists heading back out towards Jool, so I figured I could shoehorn the fly-by into their flight pretty easily. To that end, tourists Henlorf, Aldred and Aldbert Kerman boarded an Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane at KSC along with pilot Deoly Kerman (a.k.a. The Folded Kerbal, for all that time he spent floating around in a box over Bop). The launch window for the plane came up quickly (for once) and the kerbals took off for rendezvous with Kerbinport.

Off on yet another run to Jool. Ho hum. But I still like the design of the IX in particular...

The plane rendezvoused with the space station 22 minutes later, roughly the same time that Necessary Evil finally made her rendezvous and docked with the space station.

It's been a while since I've had all my main ferry ships in port at the same time.

The plane then affected its docking maneuver to close out the afternoon. I did one final KSP session that evening in which I started up the print of an orbital shipyard at the C. P. Baker outpost on Laythe (expected construction time 62 hours and 18 minutes) and had pilot Lutop Kerman perform a 2,000 kilometer round-trip flight in an Echo Flyer 7 quadcopter, heading a thousand kilometers NNW of KSC to perform a three-point seismic survey.

Lutop flew past some high-looking peaks; fortunately, he never had to steer to avoid any of them.

Total flight time for the survey was two hours and 27 minutes total.

 

Saturday was the big day. At Kerbinport, tourists Subart and Camvin Kerman disembarked from Gilligan to await transport down to the surface of Kerbin, while Deoly took operational command of the station. Henlorf, Aldred and Aldbert then boarded Gilligan, which then departed Kerbinport with Jeb at the stick and burned for intercept with LSV House Harkonnen in high orbit. Gilligan burned for rendezvous at the intercept point and successfully rendezvoused and docked with Harkonnen; total flight time from departure to arrival was 81 minutes. With the only intended consist of the flight docked and full up on supplies, Harkonnen broke Kerbin orbit and warped to Jool, arriving at 11,800 m/s. Before attempting to get into orbit, though, I decided to go ahead and take care of a few flybys for my tourists. I hit Tylo first.

First visit. We'll be back soon enough as likely as not.

While still within Tylo's SOI, I had Jeb transmit a crew report back to KSC, which satisfied all conditions of the exploration contract. And then I finally got to see something I'd been wanting to see for a bit.

That's more like it, Gene...

Harkonnen left Tylo's SOI and then warped for a Vall fly-by (one of my tourists wanted it) before finally beginning warp maneuvers to slow down enough to enter orbit over Jool. Four warp-backs later, the ship settled into a 6,833.0 x 6,322.0 kilometer, 1.53° inclined orbit. I didn't have to wait very long to reach the optimal point for a final warp to Bop; at that point, I warped to bleed off as much speed as I could before making the final warp to Bop, arriving at 122.4 m/s. Unfortunately, I was a little late shutting off the Alcubierre Drive wound up below fail-safe on a collision trajectory, so I had to conduct a rapid conventional burn to bring Harkonnen into an orbit. Fortunately, the ship came no closer than a kilometer to the ground during the process and eventually I got her into a 34.9 x 30.4 kilometer, 88.92° orbit (i.e. low polar orbit, definitely sub-optimal but still better than lithobraking). Once Harkonnen was in orbit, Gilligan departed and made a series of burns to bring her to rendezvous with space station Bopport (in equatorial orbit). Flight time to rendezvous was 73 minutes, with the ship docking safely at Bopport. During the interim period I went ahead and sent the Auk at Kerbinport home, having realized that to bring everyone back to Kerbin scheduled, I'd need a bigger plane; the Auk landed safely at KSC 09. At Bopport, Gilligan took on fuel supplies and tourist Henlorf Kerman boarded the space station's Spamcan 7 lander, but an internal error had locked the lander to the space station; this is an issue I've encountered in the past and I knew I would need KML to correct it, but I didn't get around to actually doing that until earlier this morning...

With efforts to continue the interplanetary expedition temporarily halted, I decided the time had finally come to let the three kerbals I'd landed on Pol get out and stretch their legs. Pilot Rodhat Kerman EVA'd and planted a flag, finishing one contract and fulfilling half of the exploration contract. The three got back aboard their TBD 7dG lander and drilled up some Minerals before taking off to their intended base site 1.5 kilometers to the south.

This was the first time I'd seen the area in daylight...Kerbal Konstructs sure did do a number on the landscape. Not that i'm complaining...I just think I may have set the radius for flattening the terrain a bit high...

Once at the site, it fell on engineer Millas Kerman to begin unpacking all the base structures and to print enough equipment to bring the Petrobas 36 outpost on the surface of Pol into existence. I spent the rest of my time on Saturday working on the outpost and made a lot of progress there, especially once the first foundry and drill units were in place. Several in-game days passed, and at the tail-end of all that the base's tent city portion is up and running, with all the permanent Castillo structures printed and awaiting deployment.

Petrobas 36 on Pol as of this morning. Hopefully I can get the rest of it built before I run out of daylight - nights on Pol last twenty Kerbin days...

I do need to go mine some more minerals to make sufficient Konkrete for the production of the main dome, but once that's up there is Rock at the site so I should be able to melt it and make the rest of the Konkrete I'll need to finish out the rest of the base. The site also doesn't have Uraninite available so at the moment my fission reactors are all offline. Good news there is that there are other biomes close-by with both Minerals and Uraninite, so it shouldn't be too great of a hassle to go get both. In the meantime, I do have six SAFER reactors up and running, so I won't be in too much trouble until i want to bring the base's mass driver online.

So far this morning, a colonization contract at Bohai 2 on Bop has completed and the colonists have been retrained (got four pilots, five scientists and three engineers in this batch). I've also repaired the docking port at Bopport via KML (knock on wood), so I hope to be able to get Henlorf down to the surface soon. I checked in at C. P. Baker for an update on the shipyard's construction; the estimate has been pushed back three days. Similarly, the print of space station Vallport at the Vermilion Block 380 outpost on Vall has been delayed 14.5 hours; I was fully expecting to be able to launch that one earlier today. I'm annoyed for the delay there but the delay should allow me to take care of some business at Petrobas and possibly get the resources I need ready to go. Next thing on the calendar of events is the return of J. G. Backus from Minmus; that's coming up in a little over one day from now. Not sure what all else I'll be doing in the very near future, but if I can get to the point where Harkonnen is ready to head back to Kerbin and get the main dome up at Petrobas, I'll be happy. Harkonnen is in a position where returning something from Pol is possible, so I may be making maneuvers there today as well.

[RealKerbal3x]

Today I mucked about with Falcon 9 booster landings...

By the way, the extra launch sites and landing zones are added by the KSC Extended mod.

I mean, close enough, considering that I landed this rocket from space...

[Pipcard]

Y51, D360 - The WiM-16 mining ship/probe carrier refuels on Tal (Outer Planets Mod) for 200 days

Y52, D147 - Aquamarine-h landed on Polta

Y52, D151 - Aquamarine-j landed on Priax (screenshot taken a few days later)

[Cavscout74]

I ground out some more progress on my 20% science career.  My Moho probe arrived and turned out to be a fly-by probe rather than staying in orbit.  That was a little disappointing, but it did send a substantial amount of science before it departed Moho's SoI.  A replacement is already in LKO waiting on a favorable transfer window - and now that NERV's are unlocked, there are no doubts that this one will enter orbit

I also finally got around to testing my Mini-Min lander, taking 3 of the station crew down to the old Minmus base & back.

I also started getting craft launched for my career-first manned interplanetary mission, starting with crew station core.  The crew modules are being launched later to dock with the station, while the fuel modules will be sent to Duna separately as tankers.

Then the redesigned Ike Quad Lander was sent up to wait for the transfer window.  The Duna Quad Lander is still being redesigned, but should be ready to launch in another month

Finally, I did some work on a heavy mining base in sandbox.  It was designed in career, then tested in sandbox and eventually put into orbit.  Surprisingly, after fixing a few stability problems, it made orbit without burning off any pieces, so now I need to get one built & launched in career.