What did you do in KSP1 today?

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

Yesterday, I made a bunch of SSTOs! This will be in chronological order
First, I was inspired by the new biggest SSTO, and made a giant ssto for myself!

(This is an older pic, while I was setting up the kal RCS, which used vector engines, the actual launch mass is around 9400t)
Ah... a glorious 6 fps

This SSTO is a lifting body, the wing parts do barely anything
After a sub-optimal rocket SSTO ascent, this beast is pushing out of the atmosphere!

I was honestly unsure whether this was going to get to orbit

I somehow managed to get it into orbit with 1200m/s left! It could probably carry about 1000t to orbit

Also, there is NO way this will land and stop in one piece lol.. The other SSTOs below, I have landed.

I then decided to make a cute little SSTO sorta based off the clown car from star wars I guess?
Takeoff wasnt that great

I then somehow got it to orbit first try (well actually the second try as the first try the main gear was too far forwards and it exploded on the runway before getting into the air)

Orbit with about 600m/s left, can carry a copilot!
I then decided to make an asymmetrical SSTO

The first try didnt go so well as it simply didnt have enough thrust

So I added an engine!

Due to the drag, this is the most stable configuration when accelerating in the lower atmosphere, it gets pulled up away from Kerbin in this position (flipping it so the pilot is on top will cause it to dive if no corrections done)
This honestly looks like a B-wing

Got it to orbit with a few hundred m/s left too!

The clown car and asymmetrical SSTOs were surprisingly easy to land

Made this thing.. somehow it is an SSTO too despite wanting to add more stuff but it works I guess

this thing has 2km/s left in LKO

I then made the shortest SSTO I could.. like.. shortest in length

I did clip some tanks in the center, mainly to just 'simulate' that rear nosecone actually being full of fuel
The two engined version couldnt pass the speed of sound due to the incredible dragginess of the cupola


This is the second version of this four engined SSTO, added the extra tanks on the wingtips so it wouldnt use all the liquidfuel in them before in the main rocket tanks lol

Probably still used some in those tanks, but is currently in orbit with a few hundred m/s left.

And today, I made a piston engine for the first time in a while! 

After a few iterations, this was the result

the pistons all push a plate in a specific pattern
the first few test flights of the plane I put it on didnt go so well

mainly the insane P-factor caused it to fly out of control.
I managed to fix this issue by making the tail longer, and having the blades set to control the yaw

Surprisingly, this engine can run without cheats, however bettertimewarp is needed to run the game at below 1x timewarp for the engine to not glitch through itself

This plane can get up to a decent 67 m/s in straight and level flight, about 72m/s in a dive. even in slow motion, the yaw was very touchy. the engine runs at up to 300 rpm, about 250 is manageable at 1x timewarp without glitchiness.

This engine is by far the fastest and most powerful piston engine I have made.

it took 30 minutes of realtime to get to the island airfield lol

experimented with an actually radial engine

performance of this radial engine was sub-par, didnt seem to have enough power, and kept stalling at high speeds

Next engine I made was a 1.25m version of the big engine that flew

worked well enough, so I slapped it on a smallish plane, which was really just a smaller fuselauge with the previous planes wings slapped on

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by JcoolTheShipbuilder

[kurgut]

Yesterday

I had an epic moment with a friend of mine trying KSP for the first time.
Launched a hopper, staged the capsule decoupler at the same time as the solid fuel Thumper.
He still made it to space somehow (he didn't realized his capsule wasn't attached to the engine   ).
Then once in space, I told him to hit the EVA button, and then spacebar (let go mwahahaha).
His jetpack wasn't working. We had to clear imput locks...
Apoapsis was at 85km.  Already going down he was.
1 minute left before atmo, his kerbal drifting away from the capsule.
He manage to activate the jetpack, and starts flying in all the direction except the capsule (he didn't know the controls).
(Also I said the minimum so he could discover by himself)
He enters atmosphere.
I tell him he can manage vertical translation with shift/ctrl.
He manage to get closer. But the capsule is rotating...
60km... taking up speed and heat...
At 55km, I tell him to spam "F" (grab), as he's around the hatch.
Also he didn't think to control the camera, so had a crappy angle on the scene. ^^
He grabs it !
Atmo drag is starting to pull the kerbal away.
But he still climbs the few ladder bits.
me : "Spam B !! Spam B !!!"
Board.
MIRACLE !
He landed safely on Kerbin.

 

We had 5 minutes laugh after that.  xxxtimes more epic than Interstellar docking scene.
God how good is it to discover KSP !   

I'm sooo sad neither of us tought of recording this moment, would have made a funny video. ^^

Cheers

[KerbolExplorer]

Launched a space station core today, need to add a science module soon and probably more power for it.

https://imgur.com/hYDkY78

Hopefully that embeds, been a while since I've sent pictures here

Edited July 30, 2023 by KerbolExplorer
Fighting the embed, think it won

[Kerbalsaurus]

It didn’t embed. Copy the second link on the link window, “Direct Link”.

Station looks cool, btw. The texture of the main habitation module kinda gives off a Salyut vibe.

[Krazy1]

I'm building a giant JNSQ Laythe SSTO lander now. Laythe surface is 0.6 ATM, 0.58G and 3537m/s escape velocity and then I have to make it to another Jool moon. 

Pilum 200 mission from last week: 

Many more pics in the >Imgur album<

Found some very high mountains:

Achieved double moon - fin alignment:

And collected THE DATA:

[Davi SDF]

Today (well, not really today) i worked on an N-1 M V-II-III !
What is an N-1 M V-II-III?! Well, glad you (probably) asked! It's this thing!

http://www.astronautix.com/n/n-imv-ii-iii.html

A humongous, upgraded version of the N-1, that would put even the Saturn V's height to shame.

Spoiler

It's BIG! I had to use Procedural Tanks on the first stage and some personal engine configs of mine to get the uprated versions of the NK-33s.

Spoiler

Veery heavy, but, very much worth it! It's trully an spectacle to see it flying.

Spoiler

Going into the hight atmosphere at a relatively high angle to lob the two stages up, they need the extra time to accelerate the heavy payload.

Spoiler

Ignition of the second stage and separation of the first stage. This cryogenic second stage is really powerfull, and even larger than the Saturn V's S-II.

Spoiler

There's eight powerfull Hydrolox engines in it, mostly to how heavy of a payload it can launch. In the original project, the engines would be modified NK-33s to make them run on Hydrolox.

Spoiler

And the third stage starts up and the second stage gets... well... staged! A bit smaller, but still comparable to an S-II, with around six RD-0122s. In the original project, there were other, purposefully developed engines for the stage.

Spoiler

And off it goes! It takes some time to get to orbital speed (i'm playing in JNSQ) but it works great! It can get 270 Tons to Low Kerbin Orbit without many problems.  Great if you intend to launch Mars Duna missions!

Imgur post link: https://imgur.com/gallery/wQ4fkSt

I really have no idea if the N-1 M V-II-III was something real, of if Astronautix just made it up, either way, i love the concept!

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

Today, I:

Made a car with the engine (its actually an axial piston engine i think.. not a radial engine). It worked fairly well

Using 0.1x timewarp, it accelerated quite fast as the friction pad gears didnt clip as much
burning out the 'clutch' going up a slight incline

 

Made a submarine with the same exact engine!

it... barely moved at all. also the water is glitchy looking as I made the waves extremely tiny to get a good measurement of the speed.. which was a max of 0.3 m/s, which is slower than a kerbal can swim

I then made a tank! it worked... ok.. reaching 7-10m/s before the treads come off

Decided to use the piston to tension the tracks... a bit too much and caused them to fling off like rubber bands

experimented with a few different track designs

this one just fell over

 

This one was the most successful until I went over 10m/s and the tracks fell off

Tried constraining the trads using adapters.. which resulted in them clipping through the central piece instead of jumping the edge

 

Got randomly inspired by that whacky seat on a long stick slapped to a big engine that vector flew in the incredibles (i think), and made an SSTO

the cargo bay is vertical

NYOOM

Space! 

this did get to LKO with about 1km/s left
 

Decided to take that powerful helicopter engine...

and slap it into a bigger submarine!

this one surprisingly tops out at 3.5 m/s, however the ballast was wonky and a very slight change resulted in it going up or down with little ability to change course.. sometimes when it is at speed, it moved up despite being pitched down.. weird.. but it was cool, worked a fair bit.

 

Decided to take that one ornithopter I made that didnt work, and flew it on Tumidam!

worked... really well actually! well, the pressure was about 7atm and the gravity on this gas giant is about 0.2g, so any ornithopter could fly here lol!

Flew a solar plane here to see if the solar panels worked properly..

that was a nope as the panels were attempting to track Kerbol instead of the VERY BRIGHT STAR RIGHT THERE. Also, this was taken when it was about 10km above the 'surface' of Tumidam.. which is basically *on* the surface anyways.
This one is at a higher altitude of about 100km.. I teleported between the two altitudes because I was NOT going to wait that long

I then ended today by flying around on Vitrum during a sunrise!

Vitrum as a very dusty lower atmosphere

[kurgut]

Today,

The Progress spacecraft came to dock to the ISS, bringing fresh snacks for everybody !  

Kerbonaut Tomas Peskerman is watching the docking sequence from the Cupola, while the Sun rises on the Atlantic Ocean.

Btw this beautiful Soyuz model is from RN_soviet spacecraft mod < 3

A video should be coming soon  about that and other ISS things as well... stay tuned ! : )

Cheers

Edited July 30, 2023 by kurgut

[N_Danger]

A trip to Otho  started off badly.

The second try went better.

At Otho.in relay orbit mode.

[kurgut]

Ok this was too beautiful, so I couldn't resist making a short video about it...  

The Progress resuppply spacecraft is on final approach for docking to the International Space Station, bringing fresh snacks and science for everybody !
An astronaut watches the docking sequence from the Cupola, while the Sun rises over the Atlantic Ocean. : )

ISS is from Habtech 2 and Tantares, the Progress/Soyuz from RN_Soviet Spacecrafts and some Tantares bits as well, + some decorative elements I added too : )

Cheers  

[Watermel00n]

Began working on my next mod projects...

[kurgut]

Today, well and the past weeks haha, I've been working on this project, a little KSP Film  

A full revolution around the Earth, through the eyes of an astronaut (well kerbonaut :P), inside the ISS Cupola module.
It's more a contemplative feel of video, which is quite new to me, also a tribute to the beauty and fragility to our home, this "big pale blue dot", as Tomas says. : )
Also features voiced kerbal dialogues between Tomas, the main protagonist, and the other crew of the ISS, as well as Houston.

See ya !  
(premiere starts at 22h00 UTC / 16h EST, messed up time zones in the vid-facepalm)

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by kurgut
Messed up Time zones....dammit^^

[Akagi]

Sure is fun to uninstall every mod you didn't make and make a fresh new sandbox save to commit war crimes on unexpecting Kerbals advance the future of the Kerbal race via our brave new test subjects volunteer astronauts!

[Kerbalsaurus]

I have been playing on a science mode save, with the goal of getting to Duna. The most recent milestone has been from Jebediah Kerman (as usual), when he preformed his flyby of the Mun!

Jeb looks back at Kerbin, seeing it as nothing but a thin blue crescent. And he realizes something... all the losers down there have never been to the Mun.

And the scien- I mean Jeb had a safe and happy return.

[Akagi]

surprising for a launch using only Start technology

[kurgut]

Well "it's out"   
Finished the last edits today,

Also tought it'd be funny to share how I came up doing this :
At the beginning, I didn't plan making a video at all, I just sat in the Cupola, and spend a full revolution (~2h in KSP due to time passing slower), while listening to some music in the background.
Was truly a cool experience.
I also recorded it, just to see how it looked like.
Hell it looked cool, truly was giving a sense of seeing the Earth through the eyes of an astronaut up there, seeing the countries passing by in a few seconds, seing a sunset and sunrise few minits appart..
So well then I tought why no upload this raw footage !
But ok, of course I juuust edited it a bit, and a tad here, and some cut here and there...
Oh ! why not record more footage, this part doesn't look great...
The interiors of the ISS are dull, why not add a "few" computers and sciency stuff and edit the IVAs...
Hmm, why wouldn't I add just a "few" kerbal voiced conversations to make it more alive ?

---> Typical me falling again in the rabbit hole ^^
This a new format to me as well, more contemplative due to its nature and slow paced, I hope you enjoy it anyway !  

Through the eyes of a Kerbonaut, jump in the Cupola module of the International Space Station, and watch the beauty of our planet from 400 km above the surface, for a full revolution around the Earth ! Clouds, city lights, aurorae, thunderstorms, incredible colors,... The astronaut is amazed and sees the fragility and the invaluable side of your "big pale blue dot" , as he calls it

(best watched with headphones )

Cheers
(In case you missed the trailer here it is : ) CUPOLA - a KSP film - Trailer )

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by kurgut

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

I attempted to make a tank using the axial engine! It is geared to a 9:1 ratio, but even with that extra torque, the gears kept slipping!

[Watermel00n]

Another sneaky peeky...

Spoiler

Got those custom models...

[Hotel26]

I've had a second Batwing Mk2 arrive at Duna and have begun operations.

One of the first orders of business has been to perform a rescue on a stranded Mk1, out of fuel on the surface.

        

More pax on the Mk1 than a Mk2 can carry, so a second trip will be necessary.

The Mk2 sure is nice to fly though.  Much better endurance.  Landing is a trip.  Drag chutes to slow down near the target.  Then cut those, perform a small swoop, opening the hatch for the VERT Terrier and the main chute.  Throw that chute and then pull up into a mushy pancake landing.  Quite predictable, though.  Then taxi the short distance to the destination.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Hotel26

[N_Danger]

A surface probe was sent to Gratian.

Spoiler

The start of the trans-Gratian burn.

Now coasting off into the dark.

Arrival at Gratian

 

Spoiler

After capture the lander was released

The E in EDL.

The chute is deployed, the heat shield is released, and the landing legs are deployed.

And a touch of the rocket at the moment of landing makes it a smooth one.

And on Gratian getting the science.

And finally put the orbiter in a higher orbit to act as a relay

[kurgut]

Today, I'm testing a submarine !









Jeb  wanted to see how a kelp pie would taste, so an expedition was sent.
Apparently, the tastier kelps are found deep, near the sea bed.
But ancient Kerbal tales also speak about a giant specie, that would be responsible for so many ship sunkings, and thus was at some point adored by some kerbal cultures as a divinity... :
The Krakiatan.

(from the Kerbal Book of Mythology, he's supposed to be the great uncle of the Kraken himself)
Hope's it's gonna be allright !

Mods are sunkworks and buffalo 2.
The cockpit IVA is custom made.
Also now I only need fishes : P

Cheers !  
 

Edited August 5, 2023 by kurgut

[Duke MelTdoWn]

"For not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight."

After many days of design work and a successful test flight, I proudly present to you:

'Leviathan' Heavy Miner

Leviathan is a large Miner that was designed to extract 120 tons of ore from the Mun and transport them to low Kerbin orbit in one go.
This allows you to greatly reduce the launch mass and cost of huge interplanetary stacks like 'Maia' and 'Pannychis'.
Launch them without fuel load and then refuel in Kerbin orbit with the ISRU they have on board anyways.

The upper stage of Leviathan is a stripped down autonomous Freighter holding 12,000 ore.
All the gear necessary to land and mine is concentrated in the lower Miner stage, to optimize the range of the ore Freighter.
I tried to build this as flat as possible so it does not topple over when landed on the Mun (which worked).

The test flight proved that there is ample delta-v to transport the 12,000 ore to Kerbin, rendezvous in Kerbin orbit, then return the empty Freighter to the Mun, rendevouz with the Miner and land again.
It also showed that the TWR is very low during liftoff from the Mun when fully loaded with ore, so I am currently working on an improved landing stage with higher thrust.

Many more pictures of the test flight and detailed description/stats in the workshop:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015552743

This is another addition to my collection of Exploration Systems:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2995086491

Edited August 5, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[RevanX_LSR]

Did some playtesting for my new mod. (Mod is in JNSQ-type 2.5x scale). Most of these used cheats, but it doesn't say anywhere here that you can't, and this is playesting and quite literally what I did in KSP today so...

 

Vera

1650km/0.96g/93km atm height/0.92atm (modpack in 2.5x scale)

The summit of a 4000 meter mountain with the coasts visible.

The mountain range. The thin line near the right is the rings.

A 40 minute flight to the mountain range up north and the rings are much more prominent here.

Vera's Extremely Rough Archipelagos. The rings are visible. Altitude: 1km

A small lake near the coast.

 

 

Perbi - Super Earth.

2640km/1.75g/17atm ASL

Perbi's ice sheet.

The poles are at an elevation of 4.3 kilometers, but the pressure is still a crushing 9 atmospheres!

 

Heyu - Tidally heated moon of a gas giant

1440km/0.33g

Heyu is a large moon that rotates so fast that the G is reduced to 0.30. It orbits its gas giant (which has a mass twice of Jool) every 4 hours. It would be a frozen planet if not for the tidal heating.

The sharp drop of Heyu's mountainous terrain into the water. Lower areas are rich in carbon, while the higher regions are icy.  There's lots of silicates as well.

One of Heyu's lakes. Heyu doesn't have oxygen, so I use closed cycle. Craft not visible, too zoomed out

The mountains of Heyu. Even though Heyu is supposed to be a water-ocean-bearing moon with similarities to GPP's hadrian, the mountains make it almost like Tellumo!

Still fixing some scaledversion issues. Anyway, here's Heyu and the gas giant with slanted rings. Still haven't thought of a name yet.

That's it!

Edited August 6, 2023 by JNSQFan

[RevanX_LSR]

On 7/31/2023 at 1:08 AM, N_Danger said:

A trip to Otho  started off badly.

A “trip” to Otho? A multi-million dollar (IRL) four year long Otho mission is not a “trip”!

[RevanX_LSR]

New Page!

I'm working on a mission to one of the Outer Planets in my mod - LSR. The homeworld body is not an ordinary Kerbin, but rather a Super-Earth 2.2 times more massive than Kerbin and with a surface gravity of 1.38. The pressure at sea level (2.9atm) is so thick that Rocket engines (especially SRBs) are severely compromised. Oh, and the whole thing is at 2.5x scale.

Our target is Heyu, a much more forgiving moon tidally heated by its gas giant, with the amazing name “111000”. It’s a provisional designation. It orbits where Sarnus would be in a scaled down system and is the 3rd giant in the system, as well as the second most massive out of five-it’s twice the mass of Jool!

Heyu is complete with water oceans, and is 90% the size of JNSQ kerbin with just under 1/3 its gravity (it’s mostly made of ice and carbon) and a nitrogen atmosphere. It’s high eccentricity heats it enough for its oceans to stay barely liquid, and most of the terrain is in mountains, which is the main challenge here.

The craft has a dry mass of 400 tons and comprises of an orbiter stage and a spacecraft stage. the spacecraft stage is a NERV powered 2-stage craft with 9,000m/s Delta-v. That’s more than enough since the host stars aren’t anything special (just a F7V-M3V binary) and a massive super earth with the even better name of 106000 stands between the homeworld and the gas planets. It’s 16 times heavier than Kerbin and is capable of slingshotting crafts into retrograde or escape trajectories.

The mission will take about ten years each way. Upon arrival, a Heyu assist can be used to slow the craft down, and eventually into a orbit with a semi major axis of ~70000km and a periapsis of 45000km (barely above the SOI of heyu, which orbits at 39000km) The lander stage will then land on Heyu and return. With no means of docking the Heyu lander will be thrown into orbit and the crew member will EVA back into the main craft. Then, they will return, suffer a harsh 15km/s reentry and land. The spacecraft stage is hidden in the fairing.

The craft on the launch pad.

Liftoff!

SRBs almost out.

Well, it turns out the stage didn't have the TWR to cut orbit!

 

I tried it again with a larger rocket with an extra 4 SRBs and 2 more stages. It weighs 900 tons.

Looks like it isn't gonna happen anytime soon.

By the way, that small brown dot near the top is Canyon, one of the homeworlds 3 moons. The tiny yellow dot near the right is Linbol-B, which is another binary system. The two systems orbit each other.

Edited August 6, 2023 by JNSQFan