What did you do in KSP1 today?

[RizzoTheRat]

35 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

@RizzoTheRat @Grogs When I was trying to complete the Mun seismic sensor I just launched a 2.5m rocket into LKO, set up a transfer that would put it on a collision course with the Mun then burned surface down inside the Mun’s SOI and accelerated to several KPS before impacting. A little bit wasteful, launching a rocket just to smash it into the Mun, but one massive hit at tremendous speed was enough to max out the sensor even with less than perfect accuracy and a relatively low setup multiplier. Speed matters much more than mass for the seismic sensor.

I think that's probably one of the better ways of doing it, certainly on a vacuum body, KE = 1/2 m v^2 so velocity is more important than mass assuming the seismometer uses sensible physics.    I'm quite enjoying the challenge of trying to get something as close as I can at the maximum speed possible though, plus I like multi purpose missions so the launch and transfer also took a lander with 5 tourists to a new biome for science, and fulfilled a put a base on Minmus contract.

For manual flying @Grogs approach of stop and then go straight down is probably going to give the best accuracy, but you still need to account for the body's rotation.  But in that approach mass is probably going to be easier than velocity as lower speeds should get better accuracy.

I don't think my current approach, done with kOS, would be doable manually.  I've still got several hundred m/s horizontal speed so even a fraction of a second out on the engine cutoff can make a big difference.

One thing I have learned from this, in future sensors will be placed on west facing hills, and the steeper the slope the better, to reduce the east/west distance error.

Duna's going to need something with aerodynamic guidance and a slow enough speed to not explode which should be interesting.

[king of nowhere]

I decided to do my seismic mission with some drop-tanks, because i'd hate to waste perfectly good rocket parts for a seismic experiment. so i used those tanks for the trip, refilled them in situ (isru fuel is free fuel, so i have no qualms wasting some of that to increase the mass of the impactor), went on a slight suborbital trajectory and dropped the tanks, then raised the orbit of the ship again.

but i got very few points for it. speed was about 500 m/s, i had 3 impactors with about 1.5 tons of mass each, very close to the sensor, and still i netted maybe 50 science points for the whole thing. but at least it's an experiment i got to carry out for free.

 

back to main topic, i got saddled with a contract to bring ore from eve to gilly. and not just some ore, but 27 tons of it! i needed to lift 30 tons of payload from eve! then again, the contract paid very well, so i set out to work and make this ridiculously oversized rocket

at over 1200 tons, it's by far the biggest thing i ever launched. yes, it "trascends the preposterous into the truly absurd", but it's not my fault i was asked to lift 30 tons of payload from the biggest planet out there. i tried smaller models, but they would not lift.

on the plus side, i don't need a launcher because this beast is capable of going ssto on kerbin. it just has enough fuel to reach orbit, then it refuels to my orbital tanker. which was the biggest thing i ever launched before this, it holds 600 tons of fuel, i refueled it around mun with a dozen trips from smaller vehicles (those vehicles themselves big enough that they can refuel many individual missions by themselves), and in 100 days of missions using it for resupplying i barely made an impact in that huge amount of stored fuel. but it doesn't even come close to refueling this monster. so i'll just load enough to get to minmus, where i have my heavy duty mining vehicle - itself a monstruously big thing i made with the sole purpose of refueling my orbital tanker quickly.

thus refueled, i will send it to eve, where i will need all my fuel to brake from orbit. this thing is way too big for aerobraking. i tried with 4 overlapping 10-meters heat shields, it was a complete failure. they weren't even slowing it down! so, i will need to burn most of my fuel to reach the surface safely. there i will start drilling. slowly, because i don't have an engineer on board (i have few enough of those, i don't want to spare one for the years it will take). i will refill all the tanks, and fill the ore tanks.

then comes the madness. first thing i detach the drills and convert-o-tron. then 9 mammoth engines going together. in 30 seconds the outer layer of the asparagus will be dry, 300 tons of fuel burned in istants. with those engines i also shed the larger solar panels i need to supply the mining operations, and the parachutes. i could not find a good way to attach them to the convert-o-tron, so i will just carry them on for the first leg of the trip. their weight is irrelevant over the total. the second part of the asparagus will get me to about 20 km of altitude and 400 m/s of speed, the inner layer will get me in a suborbital trajectory, and finally the central section will slowly circularize orbit with a poodle. once in orbit, i will again need refueling to make it to gilly. the multipurpose science-mining vehicle i have on eve can only resupply 30 tons at a time, luckily i only have the central section to refuel, as everything else was shed during eve ascent. and finally, after 3 and a half refueling stops, i will land this ore to gilly.

i really would like to know who is the dumbass who is paying me 2 million to land ore on gilly when i could just extract it from there. heck, the final refueling will be done with fuel mined from gilly. i'm burning fuel made on gilly to bring less fuel to gilly. well, as long as they pay.

i am so glad i could take advantage of my wide resupplying infrastructure. i don't want to know how big this thing would have needed to be otherwise. big enough that even this ludicrous 1200 tons rocket would seem reasonable in comparison.

[Guest]

I re-branded, again. and hopefully this time it's the last time I do.

And while I was at it I also sniped this screenshot from that close call on the video yesterday

You can find this frame at 2:52

[RizzoTheRat]

Ok I'm getting annoyed with the deployed seismic sensor now!  Crashed a 2 tonne missile in to the Mun at nearly 2200m/s just  100m from the sensor, and how much science did I get?

 

That's about 3 times the kinetic energy of the one on Minmus that netted 400 science yesterday!

 

So I reloaded from a save and launched the missile as I was approaching the Mun, rather than from orbit.  this time it hit at 2250m/s, but 70km away from the target

Clearly there is no benefit in trying to impact near the sensor

Edited September 1, 2020 by RizzoTheRat

[Grogs]

I had two contracts to put satellites into a polar orbit around Kerbin, so I decided, why not? I forget sometimes that just because two orbits are inclined 90 degrees doesn't mean they're in the same plane. Luckily there was plenty of extra fuel in the lifter stage, so I used it to transfer up the the 2 Mm Ap for the first orbit then handled the rest with the satellite engines.

 

And, of course when I got the 2nd satellite placed in the 4 Mm orbit, I realized I had forgotten the thermometer. Luckily, the first satellite still had just enough remaining dV (and a thermometer), so I pulled it up and completed both contracts.

 

Then my Atlas XL Asteroid Grabber finally reached the Class C asteroid to move it into orbit around Minmus. I was really surprised at the mass of this thing - only 51 tons. I was thinking Class C's were more in the 200-ton range.

 

Apparently, the surface is powdery because Algard sank up to her waist getting a surface sample.

 

Renamed the asteroid based on the names of the three crew members.

 

The crew mined their 'roid until it was just 3 tons of hollowed out husk remaining. It should be easy to put this in Minmus orbit now.

 

Over at Minmus, the Giant MOFO landed and the ISRU rover started filling up the colossal tanks. I never really appreciated the size of this thing until I saw it next to the rover, which isn't puny by any standards. Even with 6 drills and 2 convert-o-trons run by a 3-star engineer, it will take about 3 days to fully refuel this beast. Then the question will be where to put it. I'm toying with the idea of setting up a station in KEO and launching interstellar missions from there.  It's not as efficient as lunching from Minmus, but it avoids problems with the inclination and long orbital period.

[RealKerbal3x]

49 minutes ago, Grogs said:

setting up a station in KEO and launching interstellar missions from there.

Interstellar? Presumably this is a typo and you meant interplanetary?

Or did you get your hands on KSP 2 early?

[Grogs]

25 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Interstellar? Presumably this is a typo and you meant interplanetary?

Or did you get your hands on KSP 2 early?

Well, a kerbal can dream, but I definitely meant interplanetary.

[Grogs]

I did some design work today. First up was a long-range probe capable of 10.7k dV thanks to the Nerv engines. It has both survey scanners and all of the resetable science experiments. I don't have a specific destination in mind yet, but I'm thinking it would be good for Moho, Eeloo, or possibly visiting several of the Joolian moons in one go.

 

The next piece of design work was on my new KEO station. It's similar to the core of Minmus station except that I added a second crew module and a large liquid fuel tank for future missions using nuclear engines.

 

Despite the size of the station, launching it empty didn't require all that much. I mounted it on my standard 3.75-m recoverable lifter core with 4 Kickback boosters. It was a really LONG ship though. The station core was launched just before sunset at KSC, making for lovely views of the ascent.

 

Once safely in low-Kerbin orbit, the small tug at the end was enough to move the station up to kerbstationary orbit.

 

Thanks to my meticulous planning, I was able to place the station in KEO directly above the KSC. OK, full disclosure, that's not exactly how it happened. I actually screwed up the transfer orbit and ended up with the station above the Desert Airfield instead of KSC. I could have fixed it, but it would have taken a lot of in-game time. I decided to just roleplay that part and used F12 to put it in the right spot.

 

Then next up was a Giant MOFO fuel tanker. This one is a new XL model using a senior docking port on the front. Since these tankers have no shortage of dV and a decent TWR I attached the two docking masts meant for KEO station. The tanker is now in LKO awaiting a transfer up to the station.

 

[Hotel26]

Finished testing a new, "passive" Mercy drone, including experimenting with double-ended attachment:

 

 

A standard (heavily-instrumented, fully-fueled) orange tank was used as test payload.

The Mule brings a pair of Mercy drones to the distressed vessel, attaches them at each end and then provides the de-orbit impetus, before re-orbiting itself.

Each Mercy drone provides 16 chutes, a 10m heat shield and a choice of large ring or claw docking.

To avoid instability induced by duel heat shields, it appears to be optimal to deploy one as a tail drogue, while the other, still undeployed, takes the heat.  If the vessel itself risks damage from excessive heat, the second heat shield can be inflated as the speed is, by then, hopefully manageable.  [Click + arrows for slideshow]

I can send 8x Mercy drones into orbit, with an accompanying Mule, using my Aquila VIII launcher.

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Hotel26

[jimmymcgoochie]

Following the ‘no oxygen’ debacle yesterday, today I completed construction of Space Station Two with the addition of an inflatable hab section and the remnants of Space Lab One, which was disassembled and most of its parts deorbited; rejigging the whole thing to use standard sized docking ports was just too much of a faff when I could build a new one with a sensible design and proper ports. Also, long-term science experiments can only be changed by a level 5 scientist, and all I have are level 0-2 (maybe there’s a Kerbalism setting I can change for that...) so a new lab and a new hab module were needed anyway. The new greenhouse from SSPXr is particularly fast, producing food every few weeks instead of twice per Kerbin year, and with 6 crew now aboard and all my newly rescued level 0 Kerbals levelled up to level 1, the station is fully operational.

And then Kerbalism decided to throw two solar storms at Kerbin in as many munths, putting the crew of Space Station One (orbiting Minmus) in serious danger as it is pretty light on shielding. The crew weathered the first storm by pointing the entire station towards the sun while they hid in the section furthest from the front, which helped to shield them from most of the radiation, and dove for the surface to evade the second only to end up having to fly into the sunlight (and radiation) when the rather limited batteries on their Kerbin return ship and impromptu ‘lifeboat’ ran out and they all started freezing. A relief crew will be sent out in due course, as soon as I pull crews off the wheeled labs currently parked across Kerbin for some long-term science experiments to send them out for some long-term science experiments around Minmus instead.

And in other news- a scanning and science probe arrived in Eve orbit and began sciencing and scanning Eve, while it’s sister probe parked itself in an orbit that will eventually encounter Gilly to do the same there. Two relays performed course corrections en route to Jool as well, laying the groundwork for future missions, and a trio of landers was launched to LKO to await the next Eve transfer window.

And absolutely none of that required any save file hacking, in-game cheat utilisation or on the fly settings adjustments of any kind 

[RizzoTheRat]

Another tourist trip to the Mun gave a chance to get my kOS docking script working perfectly, the lander docks with the SSTO launcher in LKO and then does a powered descent to the KSC

Landing script still needs some work though, the idea is the Blue Origin style wings on the SSTO let me extend the glide range and steer , and then nose down hard to get a vertical landing, currently targeted on the end of the runway

Currently landing around 650m from the target

[Guest]

I don't know why, but this video along with my Jool 1.10 and Eeloo LLC has became a very popular video. It went from 60 views to like 100 in a week. I don't know if I am going to upload a thumbnail though I like this photo

 

I am next going to look at the broken terrain world of KSP for next video or start focusing on Jool 5

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Didn't do anything too fancy today.  I've been putting off working on my shuttle missions and relevant kOS scripts, and instead making progress in my new hard career.

Latest mission was a science and flag planting run to Kerbin's North Pole.

Yah I know it's pretty lame I put a picture of Kerbin on the pole.  

 

When I got back I discovered to my dismay that all 7 of active contracts had disappeared, the 3rd time it's happened so far (I really need to file a bug report), and my last quicksave ( keep those enabled to deal with glitches like this) was from before the flight.  Thankfully the most important ones popped right back up as available again, so I didn't have to do the flight over.

[A Fistful Of Double Downs]

Yesterday I finally built a vehicle capable of getting to another planet and back and did my first ever interplanetary round trip by visiting the canyons of sunny Dres (by shamelessly copying something from a Matt Lowne video about getting to Moho).

 

Then today I found out how woefully inefficient my transfer had been, and that if I don't do silly nonsense like changing inclination to match the target planet's plane before I start my transfer then I've got enough fuel to go basically anywhere. So today's gonna be my first visit to one of the moons of Jool.

[Goaty1208]

On 9/1/2020 at 6:35 PM, RizzoTheRat said:

Ok I'm getting annoyed with the deployed seismic sensor now!  Crashed a 2 tonne missile in to the Mun at nearly 2200m/s just  100m from the sensor, and how much science did I get?

 

That's about 3 times the kinetic energy of the one on Minmus that netted 400 science yesterday!

 

So I reloaded from a save and launched the missile as I was approaching the Mun, rather than from orbit.  this time it hit at 2250m/s, but 70km away from the target

Clearly there is no benefit in trying to impact near the sensor

I have The solution! Smash a Saturn V on the sensor itself at 3000 m/s!

But if you are precise the sensor could be destroyed... But who cares!

[Grogs]

The first thing on the agenda was assembling the new KEO Station. I started by launching a small module with a lab and a hitchhiker module. I don't really plan to do any science there, but the lab will be useful for leveling up any kerbals that need it. I also put some small and regular docking ports around the side so the station will have ports for all three sizes.

 

I launched the module on another Giant MOFO XL refueler, which then docked it directly to the KEO station core.

 

Then the second Giant MOFO arrived carrying the two docking crosses for the ends of the station. The first one was attached directly, while a tug handled moving the second one into position on the other side.

 

Then I took a minute to admire my newly completed station ...

 

... before sending one of the fuel tankers off towards Minmus to fill up.

 

Over on Minmus, the ISRU rover finally finished filling up the original Giant MOFO after several days.

 

This is the first time I've flown one of these with a full load, and even with two large reaction wheels it turns slowly. I managed to get it docked to Minimus Station, where it topped off the tanks before heading out towards KEO Station.

 

Then I sent one of the S3-based refuelers back down to the surface to restock Minimus Station. Even though this is an S3-14400 tank, it's amazing how puny it looks compared to the behemoth that was there before.

[A Fistful Of Double Downs]

And I'm done. Finished my first ever mission to a Joolian moon and totally nailed the landing on Pol.

 

 

And I even managed to get everyone back safely, although I ran out of fuel midway through my final burn before aerobraking over Kerbin so the orbital capture was a roll of the dice. But I'm just gonna call that efficiency instead of poor design. 

[Hotel26]

 

Tonight, my life changed forever.

 

Nothing will ever be the same again.

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by Hotel26

[KeaKaka]

2 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

<snip>

Docking port kraken drive I assume?

[Hotel26]

On 9/4/2020 at 2:49 AM, KeaKaka said:

Docking port kraken drive I assume?

I just put it up on KerbalX.  Dirac.  (It's very rough, yet; just a prototype, but already fun to fly.)  It has 3 such drives: 2 with skittles (the little wheels) and 1 with docking ports.

Credit to DNBattley for his video referenced in zK Light Plane Mk3 Luxury Edition,

Edited September 21, 2020 by Hotel26

[RizzoTheRat]

Automated rescue mission went well

Landing less so, it was supposed to land at the other end of the nice flat runway!

Amazingly didn't explode when it fell over, so despite being a bit of an overkill to send a quad vector engined  SSTO to rescue 2 stranded Kerbals, the total mission cost was still under 11k, which is cheaper than my much less capable early game 3 seat disposable tourist orbiter (the launch stages are disposable, not the tourists!)

 

Why are so many stranded Kerbals Pilots though?  After my first couple of missions I have no need for pilots at all, all my craft have a probe core and is flown by my kOS scrips, so all the crew need to do is reset the science experiments and give a bonus for ISRUs or drills.

Edited September 4, 2020 by RizzoTheRat

[Grogs]

Leeden and Malden went down to the surface of the Mun to check out an anomaly.

 

I didn't have the fuel to try and get closer, so Malden went over with his EVA pack. Turned out it was the green monolith. I don't understand the text though. What's nanolathing? My tech tree is already full.

 

After the visit, they made it back to the station with plenty of spare dV - a whole 7 m/s!

 

Then I picked up a contract to expand Minimus Station. It's a nice 3-start contract worth about 800k funds.

 

I put together a module to complete the contract. It will add liquid fuel storage and fill out the last arm of the station. Launch cost is only 164k funds, less whatever I get for recovering the booster stage.

 

The module will go here on Minimus Station where the fuel tanker is docking. I'll pull out the docking cross and put it on the end of the new extension to give it more standoff from the station core.

[Goaty1208]

In this last two weeks: finished Von Braun Minmus Station, sent probe to Duna and Ike, sent manned lander to Duna, returned back,  sent an experimental craft to change 3 of the four crew of Minmus Station that were there for  nine years due to the Duna exploration program. Now planning Ares Duna Space Station and a base at Minmus with a launchpad made of MH structural panels, where Kerbals with KIS and KAS kits can build rockets from Minmus, using parts from a MK 3 cargo craft with parts inside. Any ideas for how can I build the launch pad?

1 hour ago, Grogs said:

Leeden and Malden went down to the surface of the Mun to check out an anomaly.

 

I didn't have the fuel to try and get closer, so Malden went over with his EVA pack. Turned out it was the green monolith. I don't understand the text though. What's nanolathing? My tech tree is already full.

 

After the visit, they made it back to the station with plenty of spare dV - a whole 7 m/s!

 

Then I picked up a contract to expand Minimus Station. It's a nice 3-start contract worth about 800k funds.

 

I put together a module to complete the contract. It will add liquid fuel storage and fill out the last arm of the station. Launch cost is only 164k funds, less whatever I get for recovering the booster stage.

 

The module will go here on Minimus Station where the fuel tanker is docking. I'll pull out the docking cross and put it on the end of the new extension to give it more standoff from the station core.

Where did you find the 1.10.1 version of kerbal alarm clock? I can't find it on CurseForge and SpaceDock.

Edited September 4, 2020 by Goaty1208

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

I've been cleaning up my manned operations in preparation for adding the USI life support mod, so among other things, Bill had to return from his solo trek across the Mun in the Watney MK I rover and parts trailer:

https://imgur.com/a/mifMVNy

Bringing Jeb's rocket car from Minmus to the Mun:

https://imgur.com/a/dMVAE3N

https://imgur.com/a/aQNl9o3

And bringing Sigmund back to the main base from his duty supervising the automatic miners:

https://imgur.com/a/yViT21G

The Robo-Bowser drone fuel truck was never intended for crewed operations, so he had to improvise...

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Kerbals_of_Steel

[DerekL1963]

4 hours ago, Goaty1208 said:

Where did you find the 1.10.1 version of kerbal alarm clock? I can't find it on CurseForge and SpaceDock.

I've been using the latest version from the release thread with no problems.

(Also, please trim your quotes!)