What did you do in KSP1 today?

[ColdJ]

2 hours ago, Caerfinon said:

Stock rescue contracts randomly choose parts that have crew capacity >0

Maybe the rest of the craft blew up as they were escaping and they ended up surfing the door on the blast wave.

 

[Stormpilot]

3 hours ago, ColdJ said:

Added a search and rescue helicopter based on @SPEKTRE 's brilliant Kind II helicopter.

Their's available here https://kerbalx.com/SPEKTRE/Kind-II

My K9N4 Search and Rescue here.  https://kerbalx.com/ColdJ/K9N4-Search-and-Rescue2

Mine uses a hinge so you can tilt the rotor for level forward flight.

Possibly useful for @Caerfinon's Sea rescue missions. Especially if you add some Kerbal Attachment System winches over each door to pluck survivors from the sea.

Now you have to use BDArmoury and add rocket pods and some sort of ATGM and boom! You have a MI-24

[Puggonaut]

Hang on a sec  ...!!! what's that doing here ?

[Caerfinon]

One is the loneliest number...

Did a little redesign on my choppers using rotors provided by Eskandare Aerospace and a little Throttle Controlled Avionics magic and now I have a squadron of choppers! 

I need some speakers playing Ride of the Valkyries

The synchronized landing at the Island Airfield was pretty cool (and unexpected)!

Edited September 8, 2021 by Caerfinon

[antipro]

Testing Eve Lander MJ Ascent Guidance parameters.
Video 4x Speed: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zdz5yj5gr0zpcmc/Eve Lander Lanuch Test.mkv?dl=0

At Eve Sea Level = 3355 dV
In Vaacum = 7675 dV

Lander total mass                  Payload mass


Suggestions for reducing the total mass are welcome.


Ortho

Edited September 9, 2021 by antipro

[antipro]

9 hours ago, Caerfinon said:

I need some speakers playing Ride of the Valkyries

about this Apocalypse Now quote (best war movie ever made), when that scene comes to mind, I don't feel anything cool.
I only remember a mentally unstable lieutenant colonel, a supercilious, bloodthirsty, sadistic and amoral warmonger,
contemptuous of danger, surf maniac, trees hater, lover of napalm's smell in the morning.

Edited September 9, 2021 by antipro

[Caerfinon]

50 minutes ago, antipro said:

I only remember

Well, Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore was really good acting.

[ColdJ]

20 hours ago, Caerfinon said:

The synchronized landing at the Island Airfield was pretty cool (and unexpected)!

I had always wondered how people had flown squadrons in KSP pictures. Guess I know now.

22 hours ago, Stormpilot said:

Now you have to use BDArmoury and add rocket pods and some sort of ATGM and boom! You have a MI-24

Haven't got an install with BDArmory (BDArmoury is for kinky french lovers) at the moment. After I found out that it's MM patch was adding armor to every craft and ruining the fine balance I had on some craft, I kind of went off it for a while. I did have some customised missiles I had done that fitted properly into the NMB enclosed missile bays, will have to go searching as this was before the computer meltdown some time ago. If I do a military build it will be much bulkier if I remember what a Hind looks like correctly.

[Caerfinon]

8 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

how people had flown squadrons in KSP pictures

I believe that BDArmory also has this capability for squadron flight, but for weapons and explosions I play Civ V

[ColdJ]

1 minute ago, Caerfinon said:

I play Civ V

I am going to need a translation for that.

[Caerfinon]

2 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

I am going to need a translation for that.

Sid Meier's Civilization V - a turn based world conquest game.

[ColdJ]

9 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

Sid Meier's Civilization V - a turn based world conquest game.

Ahh, I can see why I had no idea as I was thinking it was another mod

 

[Caerfinon]

And now back to some nautical pursuits...

The lads are prototyping some recovery boat concepts with a little help from the USI Konstruction mod.

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Sent a tiny lander to the Mun to investigate an anomaly detected from orbit:

Found it!!! :

Unfortunately it's at the edge of a major crater and between a number of smaller but still substantial craters. Landing at the site is not an option, so other options will need to be explored.

In the mean time, the lander was diverted to a safe zone about 10km away:

Doing some basic geological research in the main crater:

 

KoS

[Caerfinon]

Taking a page out of the Bezos playbook... tourists with no pilots (so mean). 

[ColdJ]

@Stormpilot Well I went looking through Jeb's Junkyard and found a massive Hind MI-24 cockpit shell. Took some rebuilding and shrinking to Kerbal size, adding entry/exit points and ladder colliders, new body collider and a very simple internal but finally after having to reinstall 1.12.1 and losing any craft I have built for the last 2 months (that I hadn't put on Kerbal X) Here it is, a working Hind that goes with Airplane Plus Mk3s1.5 form factor. The last 2 pics show how it compares to the Rescue chopper.

Oh and it will barrel roll and if you do a dive from 2km up to get up to 70m/s it will do a Blue Thunder

Spoiler

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by ColdJ

[Hyperspace Industries]

Greetings fellow kerbonauts! Have I got a story for you! (answer = yes)

The story:

Spoiler

Kemini 1 was a test flight with a load of new equipment, a scaled down poodle engine prototype, a new eva backpack, and all sorts of equipment to test out eva construction in microgravity, one piece in particular, saved the kerbonauts inside from almost certain doom.

Val checked the controls, everything was operational, Natalya (nicknamed Nat), agreed, and reported everything was stable, they were go for launch.

Kemini 1 lumbered ever so slowly off the launch pad, the first stage ascent ran perfectly.

Stage separation went without a hitch, the experimental poodle engine had some plume disturbances, but no deltaV was lost. 

It was at the circularization burn where things went north (I'm in the southern hemisphere), they circularized too late, and burnt too much, they were completely empty, not even a fume was left in the tank, Nat composed herself and quickly concluded: 1: They were stranded, and 2: She had to deploy the solar panel by going on an eva. Val didn't need to compose herself.

Nat climbed out of Kemini's hatch, grabbed the tether, and inflated her backpack. She attached the solar panel with ease, but, while looking through the other junk in the storage, she found a glittering, golden, and most importantly, full bagel tank!

Overjoyed, she quickly, but carefully, attached it to Kemini, and to make sure they could use it's fuel, she attached a fuel line too.

As she smiled her broadest, happiest smile in a while, Val exclaimed over the coms: "187m/s, You're a Bleepin' Genius!!"

Nat happily grabbed onto the eva rails (repurposed ladder) and made her way to the hatch, and climbed into Kemini full of joy, they weren't stranded after all.

Val happily stared out of the window to the planet below.

The folks at mission control plotted a reentry burn of 14.8m/s, to which Val remarked: "I probably could've done that with the eva pack, just saying"

The second stage separated perfectly. (No part failure mods installed)

They were understandably, very eager for reentry, and had smiling faces the whole time.  

They had splashed down close to sandy island, so recovery was quick.   

There is no feeling quite like that of recovering your kerbals after a near failure mission, the joy of them being safe and sound is unparalleled.  

 

[Araym]

Since yesterday, aside some heavy cfg patching to some old parts that I'm trying to keep alive in modern KSP, I'm messing with a monster rocket...

 

Behold!

 

The Might(ly kitbashed) Saturn C8 NOVA!

Some "flight test simulations" (a.k.a.: put it in the pad to check if I stacked everything correctly and deal with a lot of "Revert to VAB" moments, to iron out issues) showing some "simulated" moment of the prospected final vehicle:

 

And then the final, actual, product that will be shipped to the Araym's Kerbal Administration of Space Adventures, refined by changing the layout of the first stage engine positions (... in these pre-flight tests, they were arranged alike the Saturn I: 4x central, 4x external) and the addition of the 8th engine in the second stage:

Gloriously rocket of BDB lineage (at probably 80% derived from Bluedog's Sarnus V) made of:

• a mandatory entire (hystorical) Apollo CSM as Munar Ascent Stage;
• a reworked/shortened Saturn I S-IV (the early upper stage, with 6 small engines mount) with modernized 6x AJ-100 engines (derivative of the upper stage engine used in the Thor-Able/Delta rocket, or the General Electric's proposal for another, discarded, Direct Ascent Apollo) as Munar Lander Stage/Munar Orbit Insertion, as my kitbashed invention;
• the entire (actually flown) S-IV-B (from the Saturn V) in the classic single 1x J-2 propelled version as third stage;
• a S-II-8 second stage of new concept, exagerately powered (but needed) by 8x J-2 engines (7x in anular configuration + 1x central) as the Nova required also, following the proposed rocket;
• a S-IC-8 first stage, powered by 8x roaring F-1 engines (in the same S-II new design as 7x anular/1x central).

Further "press release" will inform the public about the sorts of the intrepids Jeb, Bill and Bob, scheduled to be launch live for the actual Mun shot mission.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Araym

[antipro]

Testing "Eve Lander", from KSL to a 120Km LKO, MJ Ascent Guidance parameters.
Video 4x Speed: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ldeopcgszjk9y4i/eve lander from sea level to LKO 120km_edit 4x.mkv?dl=0

This 50m tall, 1240 t "Launcher" can put the 306 t "Eve Lander" at a 120Km LKO , and still has enough fuel to deorbit burning into the Kerbin atmo. No orbiting garbage.
Another ship called "Eve Transfer", once built, will dock the lander in LKO and will transfer it to the Eve atmo.
And another already built vessel called "Eve Returner" will dock the lander in LEO and bring them back home.
 

Launcher total mass             Payload mass

Suggestions for reducing the total mass are welcome.

 

Ortho

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by antipro

[Lisias]

I decided to do a passenger plane that would reflect how I see KSP nowadays. Sounds legit.  

Moar pictures. Craft on KerbalX.

[Hotel26]

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I decided to do a passenger plane that would reflect how I see KSP nowadays

I saw you post that to KerbalX and thought: "hello hello, what's all this, then: new entrant to the Asymmetrical Aircraft Challenge??"

 

 

[Puggonaut]

Landed on the Mun for a change 

 

[ColdJ]

Have updated my mod H.A.D.D to 1.2.0

 

[ColdJ]

I have put the Hind cockpit up on Spacedock for others to try as I have no other way to share the rebuilt model I used. I am uncertain about the license but I found that the original author had left open permission in their last post on their thread. There will be no updates to this mod and no forum thread.

This is based upon the proviso that the original Author "StereotypicalBrit" expressed open permission on their last post on their mod thread that anyone could continue the work and there is no way to contact them as they have not been around since 2018. Link here

https://spacedock.info/mod/2846/Hound MI-24?ga=<Game+3102+'Kerbal+Space+Program'>

[DunaManiac]

Recently, I've created and built a brand new class of spaceplanes, the Fortitude Class. The Fortitude class is a Mk3 Spaceplane, the first of it's kind (and the first I've ever successfully built) SSTO capable of reaching Minmus orbit and back. Unlike SSTMin, which was a general purpose mk1 spaceplane which had no real purpose other than to pave the way for more advanced spaceplanes and to perhaps shuttle crew back and forth. However, the Fortitude Class is designed to carry supplies and cargo to Minmus orbit. It's four puny LV-Ns have too little TWR for landing, so I have a spaceplane in mind that will be rated for landing. However, this is about the Fortitude.

Spoiler

The early ascent went by without a hitch. There was a close call when I pitched up too much and nearly destroyed the aircraft, but luckily the aircraft held together.

At approximately 20-30 kilometers up going at Mach 3.8, the airbreathing mode began to run out of steam, so the closed-cycle mode kicked in, carrying the Fortitude's apoapsis above the upper limits of the atmosphere.

Finally, after the closed-cycle mode burned itself out, they shut down, allowing the small NERVAs to carry the Fortitude the rest of the way into a parking orbit in low orbit around Kerbin.

After 12 days in transit, the Fortitude finally arrived at Minmus. It's objective was to do a visual survey of VENTURE station. It can't be called a space station just yet. Currently VENTURE consists of only two modules, the Command and Control Center, part of the central truss, and Minbus 7C which delivered the truss is also there, since I didn't have any further use for it but didn't want to throw it away.

Fromund and Neller Kerman both serviced the station. Their purpose of arrival was to place another docking port on the node, since I somehow managed to lose it when I was copying over the truss during launch it was torn off. The other docking ports could have also suffered damage as well, necessitating a crewed visual sweep of the "station." It was also a good opportunity to test out the Fortitude for the first time, because Minbus 8 was due to be launched soon and would have been perfectly capable of servicing it, command decided to test the Fortitude instead. Fromund alos did a survey of the lower docking port while the Fortitude floated in the background.

The port is successfully attatched by Fromund, and the two both return to the Fortitude.

Leaving Minmus, the Fortitude returns to Kebin and begins the first of several aerobraking maneuvers to bring the Fortitude back into LKO.

Finally, the Fortitude began the perilous final descent back down to the KSC. For me this was the most stressful part of the mission, since I had no idea whether the Fortitude would stall and crash as it did many times during testing. Fortunately, I had managed to perfect the design, and it had reliably landed safely several times during simulations. Now the final test was here: could it land safely, or stall and disintegrate.

I miscalculated during descent and managed to overshoot the KSC during the final approach. In this screenshot the spider web of struts that were needed for it not to disintegrate during the slightest pitch during descent is visible.

The unintended side effect of overshooting was to show off the plane's phenomenal flying empty of fuel, better than when it's full of fuel and even better than it flew during testing.

To the immense relief of the KSC and myself, the four kerbals and the fortitude finally touched down at KSC. It lost only a single airbrake.

Meanwhile, simultaneously, I was servicing the MTGO, which sits in a very low orbit over Minmus. A few pictures are below:

Spoiler

I always love to visit the Minmus Trace gas orbiter, which orbits inside Minmus' halo. It is so low that it's hard to tell that it is in fact in orbit from a picture, which I assure you, it is in orbit. I always love to have them fly in formation. This is now my third servicing of MTGO, and I always love to do it.

The service lander has had some battle scars, such as losing a solar panel and having it's magnetometer jammed open (while the crew of Minbus 6 had a lot of fun trying to fix, and later break the magnetometer, they were unsuccessful), it has already done some 10 landings and 5 servicings, and 4 years on duty. It has proven it's worth.

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by DunaManiac