What did you do in KSP1 today?

[KerrMü]

Finished my little weekend project today: "Try to build a helicopter cockpit that looks ok." Was not meant to be a Huey, but turned out to be one. (UH-1k)

After 2 evenings of building (don´t put flags directly on hinges. I´ve never seen the Kraken work so fast. Lost quite a bit of progress there.) today was flying and tweaking time. To my surprise this thing turned out to be pleasantly stable and precise to fly. At least 2 hours of flight time on the clock and I haven´t gotten cramps in my left hand. 

And you know what? There´s still an hour before bedtime and I think I want to fly it a bit more. I´m really liking this one.  

[Guest]

spoilers of an upcoming KSP video without screenshots of missions. Any guesses?

[Delay]

31 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Any guesses?

I would guess a space elevator? I dunno; there's a tower and a train...

Edited December 1, 2020 by Delay

[Stosh]

Built a lower profile Vacc Lander (here docked to a Stock Vacc World Fuel/Crew transfer depot, and free flying). Gathered over 2100 Science from 2 seperate Surface Hop transits using only a Science Jr., Thermometer, Barometer, Mystery Goo. Rendevous for refueling and Crew between each three surface hop flights. Missing only Poles and slopes.

Time to insert one into orbit around the Mun for the Protracted Mun Science Raid. Planning on 2 Biome hops per each Mun surface transit.

[N. Simplicity]

I took a couple of photos of Minmus Midlands Base:

https://imgur.com/WkqiyX6

And a bit further back:

https://imgur.com/ZC93tTP

[SpacePixel]

 

Among the dunes

[JadeOfMaar]

As a spaceplane guy I didn't like that @damonvv's KSC Extended only cares about rockets so I made my own major space center expansion! With Blackjack and h#$%^&s!

But they're totally meant to be a pair!

Edited December 1, 2020 by JadeOfMaar

[Popestar]

The past couple of days I've been continuing to work on my Caveman Challenge career...and the going is SLOW.  I'm trying to get enough science points to get more efficient propulsion systems before I start docking to that ugly space station, so I've been taking on contracts that grant science points for completing them.  Unfortunately, I can only have 2 contracts at once, and the gain is pretty darned small (2 here, 4 there).  But, I've earned enough science points to put me at 49.5 points, which is just over halfway to unlocking the next node in the tech tree.  So when I get to 90, I'll have unlocked better propulsion systems.  Yay!

[antipro]

I did this today:

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by antipro

[jimmymcgoochie]

Continuing an RP-1 career, I made a rocket plane to do a bunch of contracts. Flight 1 went OK, but I had to use the emergency parachute and ditch in the sea because I vastly overestimated its flight distance and airdropped it too far out to sea. Once it got fished out and returned to the SPH I upgraded the engine and made some minor adjustments to the fuel tanks to give it much more fuel than before, then flew it again even faster than before and so high that a big warning flashed up saying something like ‘go down or your pilot will run out of oxygen and die’; the pilot was fine and a fully successful runway landing followed.

Flight 3, the airdrop worked fine but the engine said no ignitions remaining even though it has 4 ignitions? Turns out that refuelling the plane isn’t enough, I also have to pull off the old engine with the depleted ignitions and put on a brand new (and identical) one in its place to make it work.

[vv3k70r]

Upgrading base, awaiting sunrise to load battery for contract:

I took a schortut with rover. It looks good on the map. But reality looks diferent:

But Cardan Kerman is a brave scientist and follow orders:

Setting new roads on nearby Mun using all the wheels. Reaction wheels.

And he passed.  As he passed all the way from the Polar Crater. Southwest crater is near, and then the south pole - Bob did the north.

[Majk]

My first sample return from Nemesis (After Kerbin).

This is a two stage lander - the 4 gold fuel tanks are the descent stage and 2 silver tanks are the ascent stage. Each stage has 4 Spider engines and all 8 engines run during the descent. There is a battery, probe core, reaction wheel and scientific payload inside the lower stage, which is designed to stay on the moon to continue the gravioli and seismic research. 

One of the ascent stage engines exploded during descent and clumsy Jebediah broke a solar panel on EVA. 

As the landing spot is surrounded by higher peaks, a substantial amount of vertical velocity was needed to get to orbit. With a missing engine the TWR of the ascent stage dropped to meager 1.2 and the ~820 m/s of delta-v wasn't sufficient to get back to Solitude. 

Fortunately, the descent stage had 150 m/s left. I spent 100 of these to get both modules to a decent suborbital trajectory, decoupled and used the remaining fuel to land the descent stage with 8 m/s left (and another engine malfunction). It took a bit of vessel switching to keep both from crashing. 

Because of the vessel switching, two of the ascent stage engines malfunctioned and Jebediah needed to promptly duct tape them back together mid-flight.

I doubt his EVA report is publishable.

 

[Astrionix]

@Majk Welcome to the forums!

[Puggonaut]

 

[Guest]

Tooling around with an Inner Planets themed career. I did a crew rotation for my spaceship currently orbiting Gilly, sent a surveyor probe to Moho, and am testing a miner/refinery combination also intended to head there. It works great on the Mun. Might deck the final version up with some more scientific instruments. It will also serve as the booster to get Bill and possibly an extra pilot there. There's an Eve/Moho transfer window in three weeks, so my Gilly crew will head there next -- according to my estimates they have the legs for it, but will need the miner/refinery there to refuel. 

This one is slow, slow as I don't have more than a couple of hours a week to put into this.

The miner has a quite a bit of robotics in it. The Nervs all pivot for cruise and landing, and the drill is mounted on a couple of servos hidden in the structural tube; it sits on the back of the craft in flight and pivots down and around to the side to get to work. Yes it clips, no I don't think it's cheating in this context.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Guest

[IncompetentSpacer]

The below picture is nothing special compared to what people usually post in this forum - it is unusual for me....

First of all let me link to a chart of rocket sizes:

 

 

Usually, I launch large spacecraft in several parts to orbit and then dock the relevant parts to each other there. I prefer small to medium sized rockets. But this time, I went lazy and for the heck of it made this monster - 158 meters tall (assembled as three different designs in VAB one time or another and now merged together). It was too tall for for VAB with top clipping the roof and bottom stage clipping the floor, but seems to be ok once on the launch pod.

....

Despite it looking as I went overboard with boosters and engines, its TWR is crappy at 1.37

Edited December 4, 2020 by IncompetentSpacer

[Clamp-o-Tron]

29 minutes ago, IncompetentSpacer said:

Despite it looking as I went overboard with boosters and engines, its TWR is crappy at 1.37

Have I been playing KSP wrong after all this time? 1.37 is a little much TWR for me! My definition of a crappy TWR is 1.05, and most of my rockets are in the 1.10-1.20 range.

To be fair, I am on JNSQ, and I spend multiple days designing and testing each launch vehicle before I save it as a subassembly and use it dozens of times without modifications.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Clamp-o-Tron

[IncompetentSpacer]

9 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Have I been playing KSP wrong after all this time? 1.37 is a little much TWR for me! My definition of a crappy TWR is 1.05, and most of my rockets are in the 1.10-1.20 range.

There is no right and wrong in KSP -the only thing that matters is - does the rocket transport the payload where I want to? If yes - It is a great design imho. Wast majority of users on this forums will disagree but that is neither here or there.

I don't aim for general TWR value but I want as much as possible TWR at atmo stages below 20 000 for heavy rockets but generally I am more concerned with DV budget.

In  career mode I aimed for cheapest possible launch which generally translates to lower TWR values  - but I have now reached a stage where money is no longer issue (80 million in the bank) and I want cleanest and fastest orbit and  this design behaves at its best with 1.5+ TWR  up to 10 000 meters (when I tested it before adding last 60 tons on the top). It means I can start turning much earlier and get out of the lower atmosphere much faster than with lower TWR.

Some other design would be excellent at 1.1 TWR but than I suspect it would have been more aerodynamic than what I slapped together.  This design? I would have spent ages spending DV fighting gravity in lower atmosphere.

I see now that you have in your post that your are playing JNSQ mod. Can't compare the designs then, especially if they kept stock components.

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by IncompetentSpacer

[jimmymcgoochie]

Even in JNSQ I usually aim for a launch TWR of 1.4 or so- any less and the gravity losses take their toll, but any higher and it tends to need more fuel which adds more weight and reduces the TWR again.

There isn’t a magic formula for the ‘perfect’ TWR and if I remember correctly the Saturn V had a launch TWR of about 1.1. Higher TWR usually means more expensive engines though which often means that it’s better to use a less powerful main engine(s) and add moar boosters to throw it off the pad and into thinner air where the engines work better.

[Cydonian Monk]

Today? Nothing major, just put Sputnik into its mostly-correct Earth orbit in RSS/RO using some cleaned up kOS launch scripts.

 

[AeroSky]

Lets see....... I installed RSS/RO/RP-1 for the first time. I also tried to build a rocket in sandbox, but it keeps saying the avionics is insufficient, even though I have the Saturn IB Instrument Package thing (I think that's what it's called). I just want to see how Earth looks like  

I'll try tomorrow, I guess!

 

[SpaceFace545]

I just got mad with the game and uninstalled it just to feel bad and reinstall it the next hour.

[Guest]

here is a video of pretty much everything I did for the last month

 

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

What did i do today? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Register Fake News for Kerbal Space Program. Then made memes on KSP, and finally finished with a classic... yup, made jeb and vall go on some MORE dates on laythe. Gene Kerman is getting tired of Wasting Millions on these Entertainment dates on Laythe.

Edited December 4, 2020 by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE
Reason for Edit??? WHAT? I CANT ADD stuff without being questioned!?!?!?! What place is this? China? I wanna edit and edit and edit, edit, edit edit, so please stop asking me "Hey kids ya wanna tell my why you edited this" its getting annoying. XD

[Misguided Kerbal]

3 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

Reason for Edit??? WHAT? I CANT ADD stuff without being questioned!?!?!?! What place is this? China? I wanna edit and edit and edit, edit, edit edit, so please stop asking me "Hey kids ya wanna tell my why you edited this" its getting annoying. XD

You don't need to actually add the edit reason, it just leaves it as blank then.

 

Anyways, this was not today, it was a couple of days back. 

 

I should've put this all in a spoiler

Spoiler

Shameless self plug:

This is all from Chapter 6, but I recommend reading all of it