What did you do in KSP1 today?

[KeaKaka]

(more what did I do in KSP this past week, but) I decided to get a feel back for the game after playing with a heavily modded install for some time, and so started a mostly stock science mode playthrough:

Untitled Space Craft 3 (or maybe 4, I can't remember) on a grassy knoll shortly after the first circummunar flight:

Untitled Space Craft 5 at the first Munar landing:

Untitled Space Craft 6 at the second (and nearly fatal) Munar landing:

Untitled Space Craft 6A at the first Minmus landing:

[BadOaks]

5 hours ago, Blufor878 said:

Some of my fellow KSP players have been telling me to use TUFX. I installed it along with some other graphics mods and tools. I'm pretty happy with the results so far. Stay tuned.

Looking pretty good! I've really enjoyed playing with Zorg's profile + ambient occlusion. Messing with Planetshine settings has also given some nice effects.

[tajwo]

I recovered a piece of space debris, because a contract told me to. The part that I recovered (Crew cabin) and the orbit it was at makes me think it was probably from one of my failed kerbal rescue contracts. I guess Francal's ghost lives in there now...that cabin is probably haunted and I've made a mistake by returning it. At least I have more than 70k more Funds to squander.

Hopefully the re-entry and gee forces banished whatever spirits were inside there.

I uploaded the rest of the screenshots from the mission to Imgur. Here's the album

[N_Danger]

 After arriving at Jool and finding out that it turned into a singularity. I went through all my mods and found the culprit causing this. 

Spoiler

the blue spot just to the right of the space craft is Laythe 

But  the capture burn was successful.

And we get another encounter at Laythe after a burn at AP.

Then it was time to send up a resupply mission. First the oldest empty one is un-docked and deorbited.

Then a new one goes up on a upgraded booster.

[GDJ]

Been playing with Kerbal Konstructs and Kerbinside Remastered and building my own Airports and Airfields.

[GDJ]

For example:



Level 2 runway (old cracked asphalt), moved the Wind Turbines around, added a windsock (it's really tiny), added the radio tower (behind the hangers) and deleted a few of the Level 3 items. This would be an example of a slightly busy small airport that would service a small remote town or city. Mostly Prop planes or small jets. It's a work in progress.

Edited October 1, 2022 by GDJ

[Rutabaga22]

On 9/26/2022 at 1:41 PM, panzer1b said:

You mean the tank or the ship?

The ship is rather complicated, since i designed something that was supposed to both fit a certain asthetic (most of my ships these days are designed in the order of core -> exterior -> everything else.  I build for asthetics and the Dimension class cruiser took prolly the 2nd longest amount of time to develop (1st place goes to the ancient SSTO normandy replica, the best and only legit full on replica i made in KSP as it sucked up so much of my time). 

The Dimension's requirements were from the very start: Looks amazing, resistant to all conventional weapons (1.25m or smaller torps), 3K dV when fully loaded and most of all minimal part count (hull itself never exceeded 500 parts, current variant is 430 without any weapons and without the internal bridge, 450 with said bridge).

 

It's actually the one ship i made with the longest history of iterations too, alongside the nebula frigate (although the iterations of the DImension were much bigger changes while the Nebula had purely asthetic edits more or less).

The 1st gen was sorta meh, but it was at that time one of my larger vessels which wasn't crap (armor was top notch, just a bit small).  Unique thing about it was the rear hangar bay with engines actually integrated in the hull and firing out the corners of the hangar (depending on how the fighters were placed you had to disable one or more engines in the hangar or the fighters would be roasted, a flaw that was fixed in later variants).

2nd gen was actually decent sized, and moved the hangar in middle of the primary hull which was a bad idea for 2 reasons.  First of all, the hangar was so bloody small it wasnt particularly useful for anything but the smallest of fighters (which in lore would be HK-1s, a fighter that normally is small enough to just claw itself to the external hull and didnt even need a dedicated hangar).  Secondly, it made the entire front (where 75% of the ship's firepower was located) extremely likely to get shot off when anything hit near the ship's center due to how it was constructed.

3rd gen was heavily inspired by grievious's ship from star wars, although it like most of the earlier models was mostly a stepping stone to the later variants.  Its the smallest of all of them (which is an issue since it just doesnt "feel" like a proper capital ship and more of a huge frigate or destroyer), and while longer then the 1st gen, it was so crammped that like its predecessors wasnt particularly useful.  Still, it was the 1st ship to feature angled engines in the front and center which loose a bit of dV (they dont aim directly backwards), but allow the ship to get smacked in any section without being completely unable to move (you need at least 3 very solid hits to knock out all 7 engines it has, a configuration that i kept for all subsequent models: 2 front, 2 mid, 3 rear).

The 4th redid the hangar bay to make it much larger and finally useable for basically any starfighter that AKS has (and even a single small corvette such as the Nova class).  It got a bit fat though which was actually good for 2 reasons, looks more like a proper capital ship, and makes it much more likely for incoming fire to smack the exterior hull which was always semi-sacrificial.  Only thing i wasnt particularly a fan of with this model (and the others but the 2nd and current gen) was the front layout, which was primarily function over fashion due to needing to hold and somewhat protect the 2 forward engines (the reason its angled that way is so that the engines can have their thrust vector not hit anything and still aim mostly to the rear).

The 5th-8th gen is pretty much identical with entirely internal edits (to improve the armor) or changes to their weaponry locations and types (as tech developed weapomns changed quite a bit, the 5th gen had it's dual SRM launcher on the nose, the 8th had swapped to fireworks in order to cut parts and because they were just so much cooler since you could autofire them and aim with turrets allowing you to actually go broadsiding an enemy ship in full on sci-fi movie fashion (broadside SRMs were a thing but so unreliable with aim i never truly took the concept seriously).

The latest 10th gen redoes the hull bringing it closer to the 2nd gen in appearance (but taller and longer).  I'm finally happy with the front look and shape, and the rest of this ship isnt bad either.  Im a bit torn between whether i like the hull layout of the 5-8th gen or the 9-10th gen more, but one thing is certain, i very much prefer the front of the current one as it actually looks like a integrated weapon and not something ad-hoc slapped on the underside as an afterthought.  I think i'll defenetely try a 5th gen hull coupled with a 10th gen front for the 11th gen, as i think the older hull, while less uniform with other AKS ships, was a bit more unique and different then just a larger version of the frigates and corvettes used by AKS (uniformity isnt bad, but overused makes fleets look a bit bland which is why i occasionally change styles even within the same faction).

Tank is fairly simple, basically a stock turret setup (1 servo for traverse, 1 hinge for elevation), on a hull designed such that the actual weakspots are the core part itself (i used a short ibeam as its got a smaller hitbox then the larger ibeam), the hinge (which is a rotator servo and a hinge), and the weapon itself (which is replaceable since i attached the fireworks cannisters using docking ports). 

The hull is pretty much entirely sacrificial junk, short girders placed in such a way that if any is broken off it just drops out the bottom or falls off the sides while slowing or deflecting whatever kinetic projectile hit it in the 1st place (be it fireworks or ibeams).  Not perfect, but with 3 probes, 6 reaction wheels and 3 power generators its very unlikely that the thing is disabled by anything short of overwhelming fire or extremely bad luck (nothing will 100% guarantee that a firework or ibeam doesnt happen to hit the root part and insta-kill the entire tank...

I tried building a tank similar to yours, but the rover body on the turret weighs it down too much.

[planeticegaming]

Did a couple mun missions today in my career save fil

Merlin 2 landing

 

merlin 3 landing

When Hark got back to orbit it seemed that Vankel had disappeared, nowhere to be seen, craft intact tho.

DAMN YOU KRACKEN!!!!

 

Merlin 3 re-entry

(kinda hot ngl)

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by planeticegaming

[Caerfinon]

Jeb, you're  about to throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane... How do you feel about that? 

"I HOPE THIS WORKS!" 

"What, me worry?"

"

"I'd like to start my thanking my Mom and my Dad....."

 

Jebediah Kerman... B4D455. 

[Kerbalsaurus]

Year 2, Day 320

After a little staging accident adding an extension to Kerman Station, the return stage and heat shield for the crew shuttle was accidentally jettisoned. Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but I think that no heat shield or service module in a 200km orbit of Kerbin isn't very good. To ensure the safety of the crew, their stay was shortened to just 40 days.

Year 2, Day 330

An unmanned crew shuttle is readied and rolled out to the launch pad on Cape Kerman, Afinni region. It's mission is to return Expedition 2 back to Kerbin. The past 10 days without a return module have been nerve racking. If one thing went wrong on that station, there would pretty much be nowhere to go. At 4:35 UT, the rocket is launched.

Liftoff!

Module in orbit.

Rendezvous with Kerman Station.

Docking complete!

Expedition 2 on Re-entry.

Splashdown! A really, really dark splashdown!

Valentina, Sudred, and Kamin are happy to be back home. After that close call, all three are saying they're spaced out for now. In ten days, a new crew will be launched, following a new Minmus Habitat (a new new one, actually. I wasted a lot of Delta V, and had to destroy the old replacement on re-entry).

[Rutabaga22]

2 hours ago, Caerfinon said:

Jeb, you're  about to throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane... How do you feel about that? 

"I HOPE THIS WORKS!" 

"What, me worry?"

"

"I'd like to start my thanking my Mom and my Dad....."

 

Jebediah Kerman... B4D455. 

How do you get those mission notes?

[Caerfinon]

2 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

How do you get those mission notes?

I use the mod Historian Expanded and I modified the "Alternative" layout to provide the information I wanted to see.  It will overlay the info on the screen shot, but you can disable this if you just want a clean screen shot. 

 

Steve and the lads out for a sub nautical spin

[Blufor878]

A bunch actually. I posted my own custom spacecraft designs, Tadpole and Tadpole 2, on KerbalX as standalone craft files. I also posted my first station design on KerbalX (not my first station, just first for KerbalX). Also wasn't today, but I started a new (challenge) topic about making rockets from ai-generated images.

https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/Tadpole
https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/Tadpole-2
https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/Lanhua-Station

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Blufor878

[Caerfinon]

Bob and Jeb out on a flying low science harvesting flight...

These open cockpits are great for EVA reports. 

[Mouhand]

hello
Takeoff/landing from moving aircraft carrier with f18c hornet replica
landing speed 140 knots, the aircraft carrier heading N90° at 27 knots

(still wip, almost done need to fix roll rate i think it's a bit slow, and do small tweeks)

sry for the quality in 1080p, i dont know whay it looks like 480p!

 

 

[Kerbalsaurus]

33 minutes ago, Mouhand said:

hello
Takeoff/landing from moving aircraft carrier with f18c hornet replica
landing speed 140 knots, the aircraft carrier heading N90° at 27 knots

(still wip, almost done need to fix roll rate i think it's a bit slow, and do small tweeks)

sry for the quality in 1080p, i dont know whay it looks like 480p!

 

 

 What mods do you have installed? BD Armory's a given, as well as MechJeb, Scatterer, and several other visual mods. But what other ones?

[Mouhand]

11 minutes ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

 What mods do you have installed? BD Armory's a given, as well as MechJeb, Scatterer, and several other visual mods. But what other ones?

- procedural wings fuselage
- procedural part nose, cockpit and fuel tanks
- conformal decals used to add texture from dcs world 
- kerbal foundries for landing gears
AtmosphereAutopilot, aviation, lights, BDA, FAR, advanced jet engine and visual mods AVP, TUFX, TURD, Reshade

[Kerbalsaurus]

52 minutes ago, Mouhand said:

- procedural wings fuselage
- procedural part nose, cockpit and fuel tanks
- conformal decals used to add texture from dcs world 
- kerbal foundries for landing gears
AtmosphereAutopilot, aviation, lights, BDA, FAR, advanced jet engine and visual mods AVP, TUFX, TURD, Reshade

Thank you!

[pshimko27]

currently practicing sstos and interplanetary travel for the patched nonics challenge

 

[panzer1b]

On 10/2/2022 at 12:16 AM, Rutabaga22 said:

I tried building a tank similar to yours, but the rover body on the turret weighs it down too much.

I used alot of struts to connect the turret to the tank's armor so it doesnt bend and flex too much, but sadly robotics (unless you use the largest rotator which is too easy to snipe out) are a wobbly mess and pretty much have been from day 1 (you just have to get used to it or work around the wobbliness).  Still, you should try the medium rotator servo with the tall base (the smaller one cant be strutted and will wobble unless the turret is unarmored (say servo+hinge+docking port+fireworks, much more and you need lots of struts to hold the base of the medium servo).

You can see the struts in this screenie fairly well, just went from all the 6 wheels to the turret base and it more or less makes the wobbliness manageable.  That said, make sure to lock the servo/hinge when you arent actually firing it (and driving at high speeds as having an unlocked hinge will increase the wobblin by a ton.

 

 

 

 

Anyways, in other news, made the 11th gen Dimension class cruiser.  Part counts are a bit bad (625ish), but i can always make a bridge-less variant to fix that problem (its at least 50 parts or so that goes into the custom interior).

Upper bridge, went somewhat simple but not so simple that the kerbins are missing basic monitors at their stations.  Most of the parts go into the upper armored canopy that actually offers somewhat decent protection from anything that isnt phasing levels of velocity (fireworks just pass through stuff and randomly interact with the internals so no "armor" really helps to protect the squishy bits inside from sustained fire).

Primary weapon is a dual heavy AT gun (same thing as on the tanks, just much faster firing and with more ammo).  Its unreliable due to spread and the phasing, but when it hits it tears armor apart like a ibeam with sepatrons would (minus the part count and limited ammo issues).  Also visible are the ship's PDCs, namely 3 quad pulse cannons with the standard 100m/s velocity (wont touch armor, but guts the internals with sustained fire), able to fire forward with the main gun, and ofc each side can also aim independently via turrets (only blind spot is directly behind the ship, but its not like the thing cant just RCS turn quickly enough to nullify that issue).

Powered by the standard dimension engine array, 3 rear, 2 mid, 2 front allowing for redundancy to prevent any 1 shot nomatter how powerful from immobilizing the ship.  ~3K dV with 3 starfighters onboard, 3.4ish unloaded.

View from the observation deck, excellent for manually targeting the PDCs and generally cool view across the ship's top.

Daylight shot of the ship with hangar open.  Plenty of space in there as ive crammed a Nova class inside there although its a very tight fit, generally better for 3-6 smaller sized fighters.  I think the ladders also really add to the look despite only being 6 parts and really hides the fact that the hull of the ship is more or less fairly symmetrical top-bottom (aside from the very front and the bridges up top), i know its personal preference but im not that big a fan of perfectly symmetrical ships in the vertical direction.

Speaking of the front, i actually used the 3rd gen's broadside firing ports and turned em into windows for the living area.

View of the living area interior.  Nothing crazy, just some crew stations on the sides and a table in the center, didnt want to add too much but also didnt want to just have 4 chairs and nothing else as it doesnt feel like a proper interior that way (jf im gonna waste parts at all on an interior adding a few more wont really matter).

testing the frontal firepower (which is actually quite insane).  Just wish that we could adjust firework spread as the particle beams just dont look right when not firing every shot in the same spot.  Still, it looks super cool, and I can even broadside things (not that this makes any logical sense in a space fight with guided torpedoes, but whatever, its fun to get ships up close).

 

All in all, i quite like what i did with this, crossing the 5th and 10th gens was defenetely a good idea.  I honestly prefer the grievios ship inspired hull layout, just had to mate it with a front that i actually liked, nd the 10th gen was pretty good in that department.  Ofc i did modiy it somewhat since the 10th gen as it was didnt fit properly, but i thing i like the current 1 even more due to being well not symmetrical (and it has the upside down triangle layout of the other AKS ship).  Might make some tweaks (namely to cut parts), but i think ill keep this overall layout going forward.

[Rutabaga22]

11 minutes ago, panzer1b said:

I used alot of struts to connect the turret to the tank's armor so it doesnt bend and flex too much, but sadly robotics (unless you use the largest rotator which is too easy to snipe out) are a wobbly mess and pretty much have been from day 1 (you just have to get used to it or work around the wobbliness).  Still, you should try the medium rotator servo with the tall base (the smaller one cant be strutted and will wobble unless the turret is unarmored (say servo+hinge+docking port+fireworks, much more and you need lots of struts to hold the base of the medium servo).

You can see the struts in this screenie fairly well, just went from all the 6 wheels to the turret base and it more or less makes the wobbliness manageable.  That said, make sure to lock the servo/hinge when you arent actually firing it (and driving at high speeds as having an unlocked hinge will increase the wobblin by a ton.

 

 

 

 

Anyways, in other news, made the 11th gen Dimension class cruiser.  Part counts are a bit bad (625ish), but i can always make a bridge-less variant to fix that problem (its at least 50 parts or so that goes into the custom interior).

Upper bridge, went somewhat simple but not so simple that the kerbins are missing basic monitors at their stations.  Most of the parts go into the upper armored canopy that actually offers somewhat decent protection from anything that isnt phasing levels of velocity (fireworks just pass through stuff and randomly interact with the internals so no "armor" really helps to protect the squishy bits inside from sustained fire).

Primary weapon is a dual heavy AT gun (same thing as on the tanks, just much faster firing and with more ammo).  Its unreliable due to spread and the phasing, but when it hits it tears armor apart like a ibeam with sepatrons would (minus the part count and limited ammo issues).  Also visible are the ship's PDCs, namely 3 quad pulse cannons with the standard 100m/s velocity (wont touch armor, but guts the internals with sustained fire), able to fire forward with the main gun, and ofc each side can also aim independently via turrets (only blind spot is directly behind the ship, but its not like the thing cant just RCS turn quickly enough to nullify that issue).

Powered by the standard dimension engine array, 3 rear, 2 mid, 2 front allowing for redundancy to prevent any 1 shot nomatter how powerful from immobilizing the ship.  ~3K dV with 3 starfighters onboard, 3.4ish unloaded.

View from the observation deck, excellent for manually targeting the PDCs and generally cool view across the ship's top.

Daylight shot of the ship with hangar open.  Plenty of space in there as ive crammed a Nova class inside there although its a very tight fit, generally better for 3-6 smaller sized fighters.  I think the ladders also really add to the look despite only being 6 parts and really hides the fact that the hull of the ship is more or less fairly symmetrical top-bottom (aside from the very front and the bridges up top), i know its personal preference but im not that big a fan of perfectly symmetrical ships in the vertical direction.

Speaking of the front, i actually used the 3rd gen's broadside firing ports and turned em into windows for the living area.

View of the living area interior.  Nothing crazy, just some crew stations on the sides and a table in the center, didnt want to add too much but also didnt want to just have 4 chairs and nothing else as it doesnt feel like a proper interior that way (jf im gonna waste parts at all on an interior adding a few more wont really matter).

testing the frontal firepower (which is actually quite insane).  Just wish that we could adjust firework spread as the particle beams just dont look right when not firing every shot in the same spot.  Still, it looks super cool, and I can even broadside things (not that this makes any logical sense in a space fight with guided torpedoes, but whatever, its fun to get ships up close).

 

All in all, i quite like what i did with this, crossing the 5th and 10th gens was defenetely a good idea.  I honestly prefer the grievios ship inspired hull layout, just had to mate it with a front that i actually liked, nd the 10th gen was pretty good in that department.  Ofc i did modiy it somewhat since the 10th gen as it was didnt fit properly, but i thing i like the current 1 even more due to being well not symmetrical (and it has the upside down triangle layout of the other AKS ship).  Might make some tweaks (namely to cut parts), but i think ill keep this overall layout going forward.

thx panzer!
Today I went to minmus and returned!

This is a craft I launched a while ago, but never got around to sending it anywhere.

Jeb decided he wanted a bit of minmus icecream.

He tasted the surface, but has been acting a little bit strange ever since.

Jeb learned that although the gravity is low, it isn't 0.

Take off from minmus

mun assist to lower kerbin orbit

After a couple of burns the capsule separates

First aerobrake pass

Aerobrake pass 2

Aero pass 3 complete

Parachute

Edited October 4, 2022 by Rutabaga22

[Hotel26]

On 10/4/2022 at 3:50 AM, Mouhand said:

sry for the quality in 1080p, i dont know whay it looks like 480p!

The Auto quality setting came up by default at 480p; viewer uses Settings (lower right) to select HD 1080p (which was available) and it looked all right.

[Blufor878]

 

The Salamander II demanded more boosters.

https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/Salamander-IIF

[Beamer]

The past month our friends at KSC have been quite busy bringing in the dough. A lot of minor contracts were accepted and fulfilled, varying from mining orders to science measurements to the ever favourite recovery contracts. Aside from the usual recovery of people stranded in various orbits, three contracts were accepted to recover some stray equipment for which a specially crafted rocket was launched.

Once in orbit the three sturdy but light weight probes were released and the upper stage of the rocket was de-orbited and recovered with the assistance of some parachutes. The probes then set out to their respective targets, all present in low Kerbin orbits.

Once they reached their target, they latched on to it with their claws, the three guiding struts ensuring that the recovered component is locked firmly along the central axis of mass.

The probes then de-orbit, detach their small fuel and engine package and inflate their heat shield to reduce their speed until the parachutes can be deployed for a soft landing. The inflatable shield prevents the recovered part from getting any salt water damage in case of a landing in the ocean.

If the component is particularly heavy, a landing on land is preferred so that the heat shield can be ejected to reduce mass and slow down the descent speed. Thanks to its three-pronged design, the probes can land on very uneven terrain without risking taking a tumble down a steep incline.

According to some of my sources over 10 million K was earned in a matter of weeks. Some of these contracts are accepted simply to keep all the crew busy and on their toes, but in this case a lot of the cash flow will go towards the cost of the upcoming Duna mission as it turns out to be hard to find a commercial sponsor willing to cover the exorbitant costs of all the things KSP management has planned.

One of those things we have seen already, at least in part, when I reported on the tests of the loading and unloading of the DunaKopter and DunaBuggy that will be carried to the Duna surface by the planned base. I can now report that this base is fully ready as I was invited to take part in the testing of the final additions to its upper deck. I was taken on a tour by one of the engineers who helped design the base as the crew was busy testing out the various equipment. He was able to explain that although on first sight this might look a lot like a Poker table, a snack fridge and a radio...

... it is actually a stable testing platform for chemical and biological experiments that are too dangerous to perform inside, with a chilled sample storage container and a data uplink to the inside Labs. And although this may look a lot like a DJ installation...

... it is in fact sensitive scientific equipment to test the acoustic properties of the Dunian atmosphere. Now I know what you're thinking, surely this is a dance floor with a disco light show...

... but it's not, it is experimental equipment to check for chromatic aberrations caused by fine dust floating just above the surface of Duna. All of this is safely in the shade of what might look like one of those 'pop-up party tent' roofs you see at festivals...

... but is in fact a sophisticated shield to protect the crew from solar radiation, which is quite high on Duna due to its lack of magnetic field. And that Starshot you think you might have seen in some of these photographs in reality is a launcher meant to send small robotic probes into various layers of the Duna atmosphere. Very enlightening!

So we made sure to test all of this fancy equipment until the small hours of the night, everything for science!

 

[Caerfinon]

A little underwater exploration....  swimming with the fishes