What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Krazy1]

Finishing a 3+ HOUR ion burn to return Dres science to Kerbin. At least I could warp 4x but still very long. I did have a couple RTGs on this probe before but I modified it in EVA to increase the science boxes from 3 to 5 to get all the science home. I could have found a place for the RTGs but I was worried about balance during reentry and wasn't sure if the heat shield would point the right way... still not sure. I was over 15 Mm from Dres when I finished the burn. Cupcakes's video helped me get through it though.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Krazy1

[FezCool]

21 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

So just transfer the fuel where you want it...no? TAC Fuel Balancer helps a lot with this if you don't like using the stock PAWs. Also just a tip...you appear to have plenty of solar panels but it could help to keep your station horizontal, so the panels are on a vertical axis... then they will rotate to always get maximum exposure. 

The fuel wasn't really that big of a deal as I only had one other craft docked that actually used fuel, I'm just mentioning it for future reference. With the solar panel orientation originally I had the station placed in normal(?) orientation and rotated so the solar panels would always face the sun, but I assume the many dockings have changed that orientation. 

Anyways as for what I did. Yesterday I designed a space station for my Dres expedition. I wanted it to be ambitious so I came up with this long design with a science lab and gravity ring. Eventually to save weight(and because I didn't want it to be too long) I cut down on those two aspects for a more compact design(which was still larger than my other stations). I sent both modules up into orbit and finished by docking a refinery module to the end along with a detachable booster that would fly the station to it's destination. Today I sent another similarly sized booster to dock with the station to refuel and transfer an engineer and scientist to the station. Upon rendezvous I realized I had made a crucial error; the jumbo docking ports were attached backwards! The solution I hastily came up with was to undock the booster, dock it to the fuel tanker, and then redock after refueling. Unfortunately I had made an oversight to the detachable booster idea as it had no battery beyond the probe core and no way to resupply that battery. So thusly the solution was just to use the tanker as our booster as it was basically identical anyways besides the added batteries and crew module. 

After this ordeal I experimented with the EVA construction tool for the first time and reattached the docking ports in proper orientation. I was really glad this worked as I had thought it might've had a size or part requirement but it turned out splendidly.

After this we sent them on their merry way to the forgotten planet.

Besides that I also built a Dres surface base which was basically just an extension of my previous Duna outpost but with additional crew containers. I attached my trusted buggy to the ship and then launched it where it waits in orbit as I haven't figured out the maneuver yet and had to cut my time short to do something else. Don't have any pictures unfortunately. 

[Cupcake...]

17 hours ago, planeticegaming said:

how do you control all the ships at the same time, i thought they might be one at first with a giant offset to make it appear like they are flying on their own but they change altitude and spin on their own axis too.

how do you do it?

also yet another great vid cupcake!

Thanks! There's a mod called Burn Together which lets you pilot multiple vessels at once.

 

Cupcake...

[Br0wnie007]

Went Space Shuttle Status in a 747 recreation

[Kuansenhama]

In the past week or so I came back to playing this game having not played it for... Id estimate about five years. I started up a new career save (lots of shiny new things to play with and the game runs smooth as butter on my new powerful gaming pc. I look forward to seeing how far I can take it...)

Anyways found an A-class asteroid had somehow gotten into a wacko polar orbit of Kerbin and decided to capture it and bring it to my munar space station. I remember this happening a few times when i played back in the day, usually the Mun or Minmus would sling it into kerbin orbit, but this polar orbit didn't seem to have any way of touching either satellite's SOI I don't need it for the ore. Anyways from a gameplay perspective this was a pure vanity project. It wont provide a ton of science or complete a contract. I just wanted to do it.

The crazy eccentric polar orbit thankfully made it very easy to adjust into an equatorial orbit and get a mun capture. Though it took a long time. The craft I used had almost 3kms on the upper stage (Thanks, Wolfhound engine. I will not be abusing your absurd vacuum ISP at all...)

Docked up to the Munar kitbash station.

[Caerfinon]

Keep Calm and Watch the Skies!!

[Weather]

added a 48-7s spark engine + fuel tanks to complete a task went form 3700 Ish dv to 4626dv 

it has 3 capsesl not reentry ones. no rcs fuel.

[Weather]

but it lacks the fast punch to get to orbit before you deorbit.

[FezCool]

Today I mostly fiddled with my interplanetary trajectories heading to Dres but as I did so time passed and my crew from Duna(Jebediah and the other veteran kerbals) arrived at Kerbin. 

Using quicksave I tried the reentry a couple times as it kept either exploding or not slowing down enough to be captured. Eventually I had a run in which the lower part of the craft was destroyed but the Kerbals landed safely in (mostly) one piece. 

After that I flew Jeb, Bob, and Bill on a short munar journey to test the reentry limits of my currently in use reentry vehicle just incase something goes horribly wrong in the future.

[Caerfinon]

Baobab Tree Science

Why send a probe when there  is a perfectly good Helicopter in the hanger? (Watch the rotor blades on the tree trunk...)

[emord-nillap]

Sent a BMBL-B3 to Duna and took some photos.

The probe core, antenna and RTG are from the bumblebee mod

Used the missing robotics mod for the hinges to allow the wheels to fold into the aeroshell and take up less space.

Final descent used sky crane after back shell separation, it was a really fun mission to do.

[dok_377]

Sent a lander-rover duo mission to the south pole of the Mun. Starting to get some pretty good data out of it. 

[FezCool]

1 hour ago, dok_377 said:

Sent a lander-rover duo mission to the south pole of the Mun. Starting to get some pretty good data out of it. 

How'd you get those camera shots?

[dok_377]

8 minutes ago, FezCool said:

How'd you get those camera shots?

Hullcam VDS. 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Tried to build a reusable spaceplane to be used as the upper stage of a rocket.

Those streaks of fire in the background? Those are (or rather, were) the rear half of the plane...

[Blufor878]

I'm making a launch vehicle family called the KELV series based on Boeing's EELV concept:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/images/eelv_bo.jpg|||
https://www.deviantart.com/brickmack/art/Boeing-EELV-launch-881978366

And here's mine (at least the first version).




Also available for download!
https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/Kerbodyne-KELV

[Mjp1050]

I decided to try my hand at the Elcano Challenge.

I'm not very far in, but I did manage to take a very pretty screenshot.

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Mjp1050

[Kuansenhama]

In sort of a repeat of yesterday I went out for another asteroid. Though this time it was a contract as I was looking to earn more funds, and I needed to get a C-class asteroid which is much heavier.

I decided to experiment with a reusable LV. A good use for the expensive Vector engines. There were several iterations of this craft, most of which exploded in a rather satisfying way. First I tried rearranging some parts as it was getting krakened. Dialing down the Vector's... vector ultimately seemed to be what fixed it.

I love the Vector Engine's blue and purple thrust plume.

The LV was a dumb, simple design that doesnt take a lot of extra design work or gameplay time and tedium. A big booster with chutes designed to get the craft sub orbital. Its upper stage has copious amounts of delta-V with the wolfhounds. The booster then drops back onto Kerbin and lands with chutes for reuse.

It got the craft sub-orbital barely slowed down in time before the chutes deployed, and still hit the water at ~10m/sec. I lost the big tanks but managed to recover the pricey vectors. I could have reverted the design and remade it with plane fuselages or more chutes but decided that was good enough for now. I'll revise the design later. Its a good concept for launching big things in career mode that needs refining.

Found a C-Class roid going through Kerbins SOI. With much orbit finagling I managed to get an intercept. The upper stage of this craft had copious amounts of DV (~3.5kms)

Got her. She was actually on the extreme low end of mass for C-class asteroids, like 46 tons or something IIRC. Good thing considering the discovery I made.

The asteroid was docked with this little claw tug between it and the ship. I was thinking I might want to do something else with it in the future, perhaps build a station onto it. But it wobbled like crazy at anything above bare minimum thrust.  I tried playing with the COM, turning on and off reaction wheels and nothing seemed to help. Luckily I was way out in kerbins SOI and I could take my time with engine burns.

Success though. Walked away at least 500k funds richer. I rolled on KSPnerds random challenge so I will be going to Dres next.

[Gordon Fecyk]

On 11/25/2022 at 8:18 PM, Admiral Fluffy said:

Thanks to Explodium Breathing Engines for making this entire thing possible in the first place.

You probably didn't need to drive that turbofan so hard to get where you needed to go; I could see from the screen shot you were driving the thing much harder than necessary.

The Zephryus Turbofan was sort-of based on the Advanced Jet Engine version of the Wheesley, based on its performance at Tellumo in Galileo's Planet Pack. I devoted much of an episode of Purple Space Program explaining why.

[planeticegaming]

did my first minmus landing in my save file, very happy of how it flew!

 

and here's an unedited shot too, cus why not

Edited November 30, 2022 by planeticegaming

[Krazy1]

On 11/28/2022 at 12:24 AM, FezCool said:

After this ordeal I experimented with the EVA construction tool for the first time and reattached the docking ports in proper orientation.

Nice. EVAC can be very helpful. Just another tip you can use the welder while on a ladder. So they can weld a small ladder nearby and do the work without drifting away. 

8 hours ago, Kuansenhama said:

But it wobbled like crazy at anything above bare minimum thrust. 

I try to avoid autostruts but for large asteroids it can help a lot. I used autostrut grandparent for the asteroid...an asteroid is a "part" when klawed.

[Caerfinon]

Old is New Again

When you restart a career game because... reasons, you have to build the same stuff over again. SPACE STATION ASSEMBLE!  (made in orbit proudly by unmanned probes)

EDIT:

Some engineering Boffin back at the VAB put the lower extension docking ports on backwards!!  So Isaely Kerman to the rescue. A little EVA, a little EVA Construction , a big problem solved. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Caerfinon

[darthgently]

7 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

Nice. EVAC can be very helpful. Just another tip you can use the welder while on a ladder. So they can weld a small ladder nearby and do the work without drifting away. 

I try to avoid autostruts but for large asteroids it can help a lot. I used autostrut grandparent for the asteroid...an asteroid is a "part" when klawed.

Yes, having autostrut heavy can induce kraken when grabbing something as heavy as an asteroid in my experience.  But haven't done an asteroid mission in months so maybe is different with recent fixes, not sure

[Blufor878]

I have been shown the way via conformal decals.

Also felt like we needed more Japanese inspired rockets here.

[dok_377]

My rover science mission has come to an end. It's been over 7 hours, the change in lighting is quite dramatic.