What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Hyperspace Industries]

17 minutes ago, The Destroyer said:

I recreated the space shuttle pathfinder and its mission with Sea Dragon 17 from the show For All Mankind!

 

Nice to see you here.

Unrelated: As for me, I did nothing in ksp, but quite a lot to ksp, intalled among others, persistent rotation and kronometer, also built ore-to-materialkit converters into sandcastle printers. By the way, @Misguided Kerbal, when installing kopernicus expansion, what part should I download and install (for footprints in ksrss, which provides configs), just the plugins, or what?

[ColdJ]

I finally got the point I could release my Hind MI-24 and MI-17 parts pack. After adding a couple more things.

Here are the links.

https://spacedock.info/mod/3065/Hind MI-24 and MI-17 parts pack.

[Misguided Kerbal]

45 minutes ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

By the way, @Misguided Kerbal, when installing kopernicus expansion, what part should I download and install (for footprints in ksrss, which provides configs), just the plugins, or what?

I was lazy and just installed the whole thing, but I assume that removing the .dlls you don't need should be fine.

[Hyperspace Industries]

16 minutes ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

I was lazy and just installed the whole thing, but I assume that removing the .dlls you don't need should be fine.

What is "the whole thing," the github repository has 5 files:

Kex heightmap thingy (I'm writing this from memory)

plugins

examples

Kopernicus expansion alpha 9.11 zip

The previous one but a different format.

What exactly, of these things, should I install?

[Misguided Kerbal]

1 minute ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

What is "the whole thing," the github repository has 5 files:

Kex heightmap thingy (I'm writing this from memory)

plugins

examples

Kopernicus expansion alpha 9.11 zip

The previous one but a different format.

What exactly, of these things, should I install?

Ah, sorry for being an idiot and not specifying anything.

Go to the releases and just download KEX-Plugins.zip and just install it like you would with any other mod.

[Hyperspace Industries]

3 minutes ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

Ah, sorry for being an idiot and not specifying anything.

Go to the releases and just download KEX-Plugins.zip and just install it like you would with any other mod.

Knew it, I muddy knew I was wrong!  Thanks a lot for the help, sir!

Edited July 27, 2022 by Hyperspace Industries

[Caerfinon]

It starts as it always does.... with an aircraft and a pilot.

I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings...

Best of all, I lived to tell the tale. 

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Launched (and landed*, and then landed again) my most ambitious single mission yet, a nuclear prop plane to Laythe:

How do you get a spaceplane to another planet? Well, that's a long story, but it starts with an even bigger spaceplane:

This was Johnwise Kerman's first flight as Loadmaster/Flight engineer on the Leviathan, so he took some extra time on the runway to inspect both craft:

Time to mount up and fly this puppy!!!

View from the office today:

Norminal ascent, using the aerospike as a sustainer motor en route to a 350km parking orbit:

Payload deploy:

Returning to KSC went smooth as silk:

Until the moment pilot Lenlorf realized the nose gear had suffered a double failure:

He and Hilcas managed to land the plane without any injuries, but the nosecone suffered severe damage. Gus and Mortimer weren't happy about the repairs (and the bill), but everyone was glad to have them back in one piece.

Meanwhile, back in orbit:

Stuffing a spaceplane and transfer stage into the 5x15 meter cargo bay on Leviathan required some unusual adventures in packaging and problem solving, but all 18 Twitch engines fired without a hitch:

Making a flyby for a plane change before reentry:

Getting into Laythe was a bit of learning to fly all over again, but there was plenty of time to work out the bugs over the ocean and deploy some science buoys before spotting a prospective landing site:

Deploying the sampling arm and preparing for SCIENCE!!!

KoS

 

[Hotel26]

[first] SPACE NEWS GAZETTE [prev]

As you will recall from a week ago, KSC High Command had decided to dispatch a satellite photo shoot over a remote location.  Due to technical difficulties in making a high inclination launch as well, as overcast weather in the target area, the photos had only just been made available.  The Top Brass had once again assembled in the Mission Control board room.  Here's what they saw:
 

Spoiler

[click + arrow => slide show]

           

 

"Why, I recognize this place!", excitedly exclaimed one of the junior Staff.

"That's TSA 15!  It's on Olympia Island.  We abandoned this place, oh, two decades ago during another round of the blasted budget cuts!  Also.  It wasn't a very good launch site...", he trailed off.

There was an instant hubbub and then a booming voice from the rear of the room, cut through the din.  It was the illustrious Agent Maxwell Krakpotkin, but known to most in the room only as "Agent 86".

"NOOO, gentlemen.  That is NOT Top Secret Area 15.  No longer anyway.  The markings are just a clever subterfuge, I'm afraid, to throw us off the scent."
 

Spoiler

"If we can see the last photo in the reel, please."

"Yes.  Gentlemen, it is as I thought.  This is, in fact, the new headquarters of the emergent, and very secretive, Terkestan Space Agency!!"

There was a stunned silence in the room.  Finally, the Agency Chief spoke:

"But what are they doing?  Why have we never heard of them and why so secretive?"

"Well, Chief," Eighty-Six replied in precisely clipped intonation, "I'd say it's pretty obvious."

"The Turkestan Space Agency is launching vehicles into space.  Just like we do."

"But Max, what is the purpose of launching them into such odd orbits?"

Krakpotkin, a little irritated his cover had been blown, "Well, Chief.  You see, they are launching into 60-degree inclines because they have to..."

"They are located on Olympia, far down under the equator.  Sixty degrees south, to be precise."

"But what good are these vehicles in such strange orbits, Max??  Are they spy satellites?  Space-borne weapons ?  Are they hostile?"

"No Chief.  And would you stop using my first name, please?  They are not hostile.  Of that I am quite sure."

"But MAX!!  How can you be so sure?  This is a matter of the gravest national security.  We need more than just your intuition!!"

"Chief, for the same reason we ourselves have no hostile intentions, by policy.  As you know, PD Rule 2J, issued by the Planetary Directorate, clearly forbids hostile or warlike motivation or action.  And as everyone also is aware, the Planetary Directorate has assured a policy of mutual destruction should any violations occur.  It would be quite insane to even contemplate."

Maxwell continued, now in a somewhat menacing tone, "Technically, Chief, you shouldn't be wearing that uniform, nor sporting the insignia or rank.  I should, after all, if I were a stickler for the rules, be reporting you to the PD Moderation Squad..."

"Oh, no", gasped the Chief, "there's no need for that, Agent 86; no need at all!!  We don't need to bring the Squad into this matter; Heavens no!".

Krakpotkin's composure relaxed and he beamed pleasantly.  "Good.  Then we understand each other, Chief.  I will continue to expect your full cooperation."

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Hotel26

[king of nowhere]

I tried to outdo my previous massive launcher^TM with something even more massive, at 58 thousand tons.

More than the few extra tons, I tried to revolutionize the design. My main limitation is the number of engines, too many of them and the game crashes. But I can use bigger tanks without problems. This led to designs with low TWR and high gravity losses.

So I thought, is there a way I can drop the spent tanks while keeping the engines?

And I made this. Engines and tanks are on separate sides, so they can be dropped separately. At first I drop the tanks from the bottom, and I start dropping engines when TWR goes above 2. This should really increase my payload to orbit, from 1300 tons to well above 1500

Of course in reality it would never work, the mechanical stress would be too much.

With a rocket this big, the first challenge is just to make it sit on the launchpad without exploding. there were several... interesting RUDs

but I got a flying model, eventually

The first couple of drop tanks, barely visible amid the exhaust, is dropped as the rocket is barely at 30 m/s. But adding fuel tanks is practically free.

The second set of tanks is dropped

And the third, and now TWR is going up and the rocket is a lot more efficient

There are 184 mammoths lifting this thing, plus a smattering of smaller engines, plus some vacuum optimized engines as last stage that are yet to be turned on

Now with high thrust, the rocket starts discarding engines too

And now also the wolfhounds (my modded 3x version) are ignited. Not that they make much of a difference against 150+ mammoths

There was also a bug where bits of broken rocket would fall from the sky, I took many screenshots but for some reason they aren't there, I guess whatever glitched the game also prevented screenshots

Unfortunately, the rocket didn't last

At some point, the engines just crumpled.

I tried putting lots of extra struts, I tried shifting some engines to the bottom of the rocket (gasp! blasphemy!), but nothing worked. In fact, they crumpled even faster than that.

I'd call it a bug. The structural load on those rocket racks is maximum at liftoff; if it survives that, then later - with lesser thrust, as many engines were already discarded - should not be a problem.

On the other hand, I really wasn't expecting this thing to work. It is ridiculous to even conceive.

For now I stopped working on it. Loading time on stuff this big are a real pain, killing a lot of fun and requiring a whole afternoon just for a few iteration. Especially because you make a small change and suddenly the rocket starts exploding on the launchpad, and you go crazy trying to figure out how or why.

But who knows, maybe in the future I'll want to try and make it work. It certainly is an awesome beast to launch, if not for the sinking feeling that something is going to go wrong at any moment.

Edited July 28, 2022 by king of nowhere

[Apelsin]

Tiltrotor VTOL on Laythe:

 

[Caerfinon]

Exploring the upper atmosphere with Sounding Rockets (Start small. Dream big!)

Ready for launch!

Reaching for space with a bunch of cardboard tubes

Returning gracefully home 

And bringing all the science to the lab

Sounding Rockets, a neat little mod for early career rocketry goodness. And the contract pack by Inigma is a nice addition as well  

[stephensmat]

Today's achievement:

My first landing on Duna, in Career mode.

My ship is in orbit, working through data, and I've unlocked the whole tech-tree. Science points are racking up cash for me right now; and I've built up a war chest of more than 12 million; and a reputation in the high 70's. My astronaut ranks are growing from all the rescue flights...

I'm officially further into this game than I've ever played before.

Two things I've never been able to achieve: SSTO cargo planes, and NURV rockets. I guess that's my next move. I've never been to the outer planets and moons before. I'm told the Nuclear engines gave me the most range, if the least thrust. I guess my next ship will be built for extremely long range. Once I get some usable craft designed, I might switch my Science Points to building Reputation, so I can get some higher end contracts...

Any advice welcome, of course. If there are any good threads about building for Jool flights and Atmo-To-Vacuum spaceplanes, I'd be grateful to anyone who could point me the right way.

[jimmymcgoochie]

2 hours ago, stephensmat said:

Any advice welcome, of course. If there are any good threads about building for Jool flights and Atmo-To-Vacuum spaceplanes, I'd be grateful to anyone who could point me the right way.

Jool isn't that much harder to get to than Duna, well within the realms of chemical propulsion (a stage or two with Poodle or Terrier engines should get you there from low Kerbin orbit), and if you get your timing just right you can capture into orbit without using any fuel at all!

A good Laythe and/or Tylo slingshot can bring you into orbit for free, though it'll take a lot of fiddling to make it happen. Laythe, Vall and Tylo all orbit on the same plane so you can string together a series of flybys to get a lot of science very efficiently, set up a low-energy encounter with a specific target to capture into orbit or to send a return mission back out of Jool's SOI more cheaply.

Triple gravity assists from Tylo, Vall and Laythe in that order, all from a single course correction burn. I was only aiming for Tylo, but it's very easy to start playing gravity pinball if you get into the same plane as those inner moons. I built this probe to have loads of delta-V to visit all the moons of Jool in one go, but it turned out to be hilariously overbuilt because of these gravity assists. (Ignore the grey one, that's just Eeloo joining the party in a lightly modded Kerbol system.)

[jimmymcgoochie]

This is fine.

[Caerfinon]

Bob flying out to investigate a strange monolith... For Science! 

[Kerb24]

I resupplied some stations and returned some crew from Solar Orbit.

[ColdJ]

1 hour ago, Caerfinon said:

Bob flying out to investigate a strange monolith... For Science! 

Funny you should be flying that. I should have started building Thunderbird 1 but as I had already layed the groung work, I started building this instead.

Edited July 30, 2022 by ColdJ

[Caerfinon]

13 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

I started building this instead.

Great minds 

[Master Tao]

I took a Stock+, Procedural Wings, kOS-controlled hovercraft around Kerbin and set clips to overly dramatic music:

YouTube

[Krazy1]

I 've been troubleshooting visual mods so far and not making any sense of my results.

On 7/28/2022 at 8:09 AM, king of nowhere said:

I'd call it a bug. The structural load on those rocket racks is maximum at liftoff; if it survives that, then later - with lesser thrust, as many engines were already discarded - should not be a problem.

Stock KSP has a huge increase in drag at 350 -400 m/s as it breaks the sound barrier.  The instruments aren't visible so I can't tell if that's the case. With high drag and increasing TWR, stress could peak in flight rather than at takeoff. I see the rear of the tanks are not streamlined - I'd try reverse cone tanks on the upper-stage tanks to try reducing drag. 

16 hours ago, stephensmat said:

Two things I've never been able to achieve: SSTO cargo planes, and NURV rockets. I guess that's my next move

I would focus on ISRU next. Refueling will help exploring a lot. The second time I unlocked the tech tree I did this: 

Spoiler

 

[Fraktal]

Today I used the Klaw for the first time ever, rendezvousing with and deorbiting four spent stages in one flight. Still got four more to go: two in LKO, one in low munar orbit and one on a highly eccentric trajectory between LKO and Minmus' orbit.

[Caerfinon]

Putting the "Space" in KSP.  Getting all my satellite ducks in a row. SCANsat, CommNet.... there's a lot of ducks. 

 

[Kerb24]

I tested a craft intened to land on The Mun, Minmus, Gilly, and Eve, and I discovered a major problem. Drills no longer work.

[ColdJ]

I finally got the floats to work correctly, not sink under completely or cause rapid unplanned disassembly 99% of the time. Gave it it's own rocket pod.

The writing is using the stock decal system and some custom flags. It is quite fun to fly from the internal view. Wouldn't mind accurate readouts for throttle and hinge angle for the rotor while inside.

@Caerfinon