What did you do in KSP1 today?

[LineOfRahl]

Took my favorite SSTO and stripped it down into a fighter jet with missiles. Converted the fighter jet to VTOL, then proceeded to mount a full assault on the space center before taking off into the distance and crashing a few minutes later lol

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPtp-VEF1cB5FqWQzTr0DpXLRilErvEw3LuER7Q

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipN8rmWjdH740sdb8ZfzSI7SUvFD5rYzIXjy9XTC

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipO1C2SxMc-kObkUD2K1MusewZjExFHsRvXb5M9_

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipNE6LZugOtBGOQ451yGYjU1K4gqSa33SeuJ1iKR

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPBxXtYrQk4f7jXaeQ3pRiKABWjjzFHSIdsZv2A

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOJaopxqvQpka0mZ_YUAda-ucZoaL3h5f5k7MYH

[Flying dutchman]

So.. i made a huge aircraft carrier and tried to send it to laythe, but with a part count of over 1300 excluding the launcher my laptop Just wouldn't do it..

[quazarz]

I adapted my fuel hauler for use on Minmus and got this nice cinematic short video of the station docking. For the docking procedure it is lifted by only 2 auxiliary "Spark" engines, that only have enough thrust to allow the rocket to hover when it has less than 2% fuel capacity remaining. I use fuel valves to drain fuel if it lands with too much weight for the docking. As always, stock career, manual piloting. 

 

[SpacePixel]

Sometimes, less is more...

This is Hamster 2 — a 6-Kerbal crew rotation shuttle and a spiritual successor to Hamster 1 that featured similar design and equally unreasonable name that just kinda stuck. Unlike its predecessor, this craft has no control surfaces whatsoever, flying only on pure magic of SAS. Despite this, it has unbelievable landing success rate of 45%, compared to modest 15% of Hamster 1.

About that small landing problem... So you're just coming in on KSC like a dive bomber, pray to Kraken and eyeball when to start a flare. If you're too early — you'll eat dirt (or concrete) because you can't trade potential energy back, if you're too late — well, the end result is basically the same. Very interesting to fly, since even MechJeb refuses to guide this abomination to landing.

[larsonco]

I landed this little heli-probe on Eve. It can store about 2000 energy and zips at about 100m/s for a nice trip every once in a while when its batteries are fully charged. It has the small science instruments tucked under the solar panels, and a couple of Communotron 16-S on the bottom. Flies really well, but doesn't fall very fast.

[quazarz]

2 hours ago, larsonco said:

Nice, I am just figuring out quadcopters today for missions to Eve later. I still don't understand how best to control the blade pitch but right now I have the deploy angle being controlled by the main throttle, between a range of 35 and 83 degrees, with constant max rotor speed. Reaction wheels only for pitch/yaw/roll. Is there a better way to do it?

 

[larsonco]

14 minutes ago, quazarz said:

Nice, I am just figuring out quadcopters today for missions to Eve later. I still don't understand how best to control the blade pitch but right now I have the deploy angle being controlled by the main throttle, between a range of 35 and 83 degrees, with constant max rotor speed. Reaction wheels only for pitch/yaw/roll. Is there a better way to do it?

 

That's essentially how I did, and you're a better pilot.

[vv3k70r]

5 hours ago, quazarz said:

2 auxiliary "Spark" engines, that only have enough thrust to allow the rocket to hover when it has less than 2% fuel capacity remaining. I use fuel valves to drain fuel if it lands with too much weight for the docking. As always, stock career, manual piloting. 

Why not by tweaking thrust on main engines?

Why RCS and not verniers?

Why not just using this excesive number of rcs in docking mode with SAS pointing radial out in docking mode to glide sideways?

3 hours ago, larsonco said:

I landed this little heli-probe on Eve. It can store about 2000 energy and zips at about 100m/s for a nice trip every once in a while when its batteries are fully charged.

Great!

1 hour ago, quazarz said:

I still don't understand how best to control the blade pitch but right now I have the deploy angle being controlled by the main throttle, between a range of 35 and 83 degrees, with constant max rotor speed. Reaction wheels only for pitch/yaw/roll. Is there a better way to do it?

Press F12 to see aerodynamic result of those proppelers and You will get instantly what is going on depending of Your speed to proppeler angle.

 

 

I just rebuilded another antient fuel tanker using scrap parts of stuff lying around Mun fuel base fitting it with landing legs, guaidance (it has only stability asist - very antient), antenas (just in case if it stay somwhere to give some extra conection, but around Kerbins Muns it is so crowdy that every Kerbal can watch as download as many stupid cats video he wish at any time - internet is fully covered in its sphere of influence) and mor reaction wheels. Engine was exchanged to wolfhund from another cargo rocket using "bring more kerbals" with KIS/KAS.

[quazarz]

Just now, vv3k70r said:

Why not by tweaking thrust on main engines?

because the TWR of the main engines is about 35 on Minmus with the fuel tanks empty. There's not enough granularity in the adjustment to get it accurate. I'm also just experimenting with a bunch of different techniques for surface docking and using weak aux engines that can only function with low fuel was one of the things I wanted to try.

1 minute ago, vv3k70r said:

Why RCS and not verniers?

Just never liked vernier engines. IDK why. the RCS blocks make more sense to me.

1 minute ago, vv3k70r said:

Why not just using this excesive number of rcs in docking mode with SAS pointing radial out in docking mode to glide sideways?

I'm confused by this question because it sounds like that's what I did.

[vv3k70r]

35 minutes ago, quazarz said:

because the TWR of the main engines is about 35

So tweaking them to around 3% will do the job? Then You can use shift and ctrl to adjust it. You can even switch engines on and off by z/x to hover.

35 minutes ago, quazarz said:

Just never liked vernier engines. IDK why. the RCS blocks make more sense to me.

Not with this monster. Try to build vernier packs similiar to RCS. It works for me.

35 minutes ago, quazarz said:

I'm confused by this question because it sounds like that's what I did.

Without engines to hower^^

Give it a try. It works with verniers.

Edited January 5, 2021 by vv3k70r

[quazarz]

1 hour ago, vv3k70r said:

So tweaking them to around 3% will do the job? Then You can use shift and ctrl to adjust it. You can even switch engines on and off by z/x to hover.

I have tried a ton of different techniques for surface docking. The fewer things you have to pay attention to during the process, the easier it is. What I have learned is easiest is having one single button that switches on the anti-gravity thrusters when I'm within docking range and then I don't have to think about anything else except RCS at that point. It's a little bit of extra time spent configuring things in the VAB in exchange for a massive simplification of the process that is performed repeatedly and with marginal tolerances. Experiments like these are useful for learning other things about the game, too. Having this tool allows me to do some other neat things...

I still prefer to use RCS blocks because it keeps the fuel types separate. That way I know exactly how long I have to hover since the dV to fight gravity is constant, and I don't have to worry about verniers eating into that budget.  With 28 RCS blocks and empty tanks, the fuel hauler I showed moves around just fine, and with a Mk3 monopropellant tank, I can burn it all day if I'm feeling impatient. I didn't really do anything to demonstrate how maneuverable it really is.

[vv3k70r]

6 hours ago, quazarz said:

The fewer things you have to pay attention to during the process, the easier it is.

It is what pilot do - paying atention to multiple process. It is why most people are not pilot nor car racers - there is a high level of atention needed to pass.

6 hours ago, quazarz said:

I still prefer to use RCS blocks because it keeps the fuel types separate.

I prefer verniers because I do not have to care about diferent types of fuel. Diferent aproach.

 

Try KIS/KAS fuel lines. It will save You lot of trouble and look more realistic.

[mor128]

17 hours ago, quazarz said:

Nice, I am just figuring out quadcopters today for missions to Eve later. I still don't understand how best to control the blade pitch but right now I have the deploy angle being controlled by the main throttle, between a range of 35 and 83 degrees, with constant max rotor speed. Reaction wheels only for pitch/yaw/roll. Is there a better way to do it?

 

I am doing it like that aswell.

But you could try to control pitch and roll by adjusting the RPM of the motors. You could use a KAL to give it the range you want and then bind it to the axis you want to control. Using the 3 point option (the one that either uses the highest or lowest value or the value in the middle) works for that. Might even work with yaw.

Edited January 5, 2021 by mor128

[Rakete]

Ksp today: still fighting with my 1st helicopter construction. But I will defeat the aerodynamics... I shall win. :-D... it's kinda more difficult than expected... yeah, I'm more the plane&rockets-guy...

[mor128]

1 hour ago, Rakete said:

Ksp today: still fighting with my 1st helicopter construction. But I will defeat the aerodynamics... I shall win. :-D... it's kinda more difficult than expected... yeah, I'm more the plane&rockets-guy...

Would recommend starting with counterrotaing rotors and then moving helis with tailrotors.

[silks]

Landed 100 kerbals on Minmus and Mun. Next stop: everywhere else.

[Rakete]

3 hours ago, mor128 said:

Would recommend starting with counterrotaing rotors and then moving helis with tailrotors.

Thats 's exactly what I did (counterrotating props). But getting a stable flight ahead is kinda difficult. But I added a Juno secondary propulsion system today. It helps. I'm still figuring about a easy way of control (what on which button, ... which controls can be accumulated and so on)

Edited January 5, 2021 by Rakete

[Kerminator K-100]

On 1/4/2021 at 1:54 PM, SpacePixel said:

This is Hamster 2 — a 6-Kerbal crew rotation shuttle and a spiritual successor to Hamster 1 that featured similar design and equally unreasonable name that just kinda stuck. Unlike its predecessor, this craft has no control surfaces whatsoever, flying only on pure magic of SAS. Despite this, it has unbelievable landing success rate of 45%, compared to modest 15% of Hamster 1.

Reminds me of this: https://kerbalstates.com/2017/02/20/year-3-day-6-crew-shuttle-revealed/

Also what mod are you using for the docking port?

[eberkain]

1 minute ago, Kerminator K-100 said:

Reminds me of this: https://kerbalstates.com/2017/02/20/year-3-day-6-crew-shuttle-revealed/

that is a cool website

[Le Lynx]

I'm trying do shuttles.

[Kerminator K-100]

2 minutes ago, eberkain said:

that is a cool website

I'm impressed with his attention to realism. I just wish he didn't use cryogenic pods and actually planned for long term missions.

[NHunter]

Finished mapping Vasto and moved the mapping satellite to its moon, Voss

Meanwhile, the crewed part of the exploration mission finally arrived to the Vasto system:

"sunrise" as seen from low Vasto orbit

[Popestar]

After rescuing the ship that Valentina got lost in, I kept thinking there had to be a way to get the rescue ship back.  I was looking at it, and I kept thinking I needed an antenna on it...and then I realized it had a lander can on it.  I mean, how else could I have gotten Jeb up there to rescue the other ship, right?  So I played around with the rescue ship design, and put a 2-Kerbal pod on it instead of the probe and the lander can (which, admittedly, I should have done in the first place).  It worked out that I failed to think of this the first time because Valentina showed back up in the Astronaut Complex.  At level 1, but she's back.  So I sent her and Jeb back to Minmus.

The Explorer V-RM (Explorer Five, Rescue Manned), with Jeb seated in it, on Minmus.

And then the Explorer V-R (Explorer Five, Rescue), with Valentina seated in it, on Minmus:

I tried flying these two simultaneously, but my mind gets wires crossed when I do that, and I ended up running out of fuel on both.  So a quick revert to a Minmus Landing save, and then I flew each of them home independently.  So here we have Jeb coming home:

And then Valentina:

Thanks to the probe core on Valentina's ship, I didn't have to worry about her now-non-existent stats taking over.  Both Kerbals, and both ships, are now safely at home and being dissected by the engineers to find out what went right and how they can replicated that.

[SpacePixel]

2 hours ago, Kerminator K-100 said:

Also what mod are you using for the docking port?

It's just a retexture by Restock — I'm a wannabe stock purist these days  

[Frank_G]

Today i came up with a new design for my Constellation style Duna lander. More cargo capacity, sleeker design and in opposition to the old one, quite a good glider at altitudes above 5.000 m. It slightly tumbled out of control once at 7.000m , but the base design is something to build and experiment on. Here you can see it on its maiden test-flight above Kerbin.

Deorbiting:

Parachutes out:

Touchdown imminent:

...and back on solid ground:

Edited January 6, 2021 by Frank_G