What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Robin Patenall]

Over the weekend, Lemlock Kerman decided to go to the Mun and do the tourist thing.

He was quick to point out that it was like that when he got there and absolutely didn't hit it with the lander. Given that the lander was cobbled together for left over parts of other missions and only suffered a couple of scrapes, we are going to believe him.

[kurgut]

Today, 
I did my first-ever underwater docking in KSP ! And in IVA (cockpit) view. Was a real thrill, Jeb could tell you.  

After an expedition to gather some kelp to make kelp pies, and taking some measurements, the Echo-3 exploration submarine returns to the capital underwater city of the Kerbin oceans, Nereia.

(modlist is the video description : ) )
Cheers !

 

Edited January 1 by adsii1970
Edited by moderator: CPOTM( 2023-09) image added. CPOTY (2023) image added

[JadeOfMaar]

Legendary @kurgut

[roboslacker]

Today I felt like building some rockets. Turns out my main save was right at a Duna launch window, so I did a rover mission

Launch

Spoiler

No fiddling around with launch vehicles, just slap on a huge booster on the bottom and call it a day

The Duna transfer happened as soon as the rocket had orbited to the right angle

The transfer was a simple matter. I like the look of the transfer stage, very scifi

Landings

Spoiler

Put the stack on a suborbital trajectory and dropped the first rover pod. Quickly reorbited the stack, then followed the descent.

'

The landing was a little botched, but the rover was still intact, if upside down.

I was able to right the rover by deploying the antennae.

The second rover was targetted for the poles, and went badly.

10 klicks up, a staging accident jettisoned the rover instead of the fairing. The rover splattered into the icecap, leaving behind only scraps and a few durable wheels

Aliens are real

[Hotel26]

Departing R10 at Spice Field, transporting 5 Kerbs back to space.

   

Edited August 7, 2023 by Hotel26

[RevanX_LSR]

1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

Departing R10 at Spice Field, transporting 5 Kerbs back to space.

   

Is this gratian? It seems like it from the terrain and the name of the launch pad.

[Hotel26]

18 minutes ago, JNSQFan said:

Is this gratian?

It's Duna in stock KSP.  (A phono-pun on 'Dune' floating around in here somewhere.)

[RevanX_LSR]

Just now, Hotel26 said:

It's Duna in stock KSP.  (A phono-pun on 'Dune' floating around in here somewhere.)

Wow. Planes fly surprisingly well there, the low pressure is countered by high molecular mass and low gravities and temperatures.

[Hotel26]

9 minutes ago, JNSQFan said:

Planes fly surprisingly well there

They do but the catch is that they have to be built quite differently from Kerbin.  (You'll have noted the wing area (and chutes) of Batwing Mk2...)

The description of JNSQ (which I read just recently) appealed to me and I'd like to try it (in preference to say RSS) but -- I feel like I am only half way through KSP stock. 

I guess JNSQ could run in parallel, although perhaps in a separate installation?

Edited August 7, 2023 by Hotel26

[JadeOfMaar]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Departing R10 at Spice Field, transporting 5 Kerbs back to space.

   

2 hours ago, JNSQFan said:

Wow. Planes fly surprisingly well there, the low pressure is countered by high molecular mass and low gravities and temperatures.

It's not every day you see a Duna plane that's not bogged down from trying to be an SSTO from Kerbin. I'd be pleasantly surprised if its stall speed is a wholesome 40m/s or lower (then it wouldn't need chutes). Anyway, this is awesome.

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Spice Field

I would think this was Gratian too, but Gratian at least, has more remarkable detail textures and every biome is spice so this name is too plain to pass for a biome name there.

2 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

in a separate installation?

Yep.

[Angelo Kerman]

19 hours ago, kurgut said:

Today, 
I did my first ever underwater docking in KSP ! And in IVA (cockpit) view. Was a real thrill, Jeb could tell you.  

After an expedition to gather some kelp to make kelp pies, and taking some measurements, the Echo-3 exploration submarine returns to the capital underwater city of the Kerbin oceans, Nereia.
 

(modlist is the video description : ) )
Cheers !

 

This is amazing and very well done! I love the changes you made to the Guppy IVA too

[OJT]

10 hours ago, JNSQFan said:

Planes fly surprisingly well there

 

10 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

They do but the catch is that they have to be built quite differently from Kerbin

 

7 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

It's not every day you see a Duna plane that's not bogged down from trying to be an SSTO from Kerbin. I'd be pleasantly surprised if its stall speed is a wholesome 40m/s or lower (then it wouldn't need chutes). Anyway, this is awesome

I thought I'd chime in, since I've built a lot of Duna planes (and even an SSTO that flew from Kerbin to Duna and back)

The planes really don't need to be built that differently from Kerbin. Obviously you need more wing area to account for thinner atmosphere, but in general my Duna planes didn't look that much different from my Kerbin designs
However, what really needs adapting is how you actually fly the plane. Because while the gravity is lower, the plane carries a lot of inertia and as a result every course correction must be done way in advance. Turning circles are way bigger in Duna flight and picking a somewhat flat landing spot is critical because if you suddenly encounter a small hill on your approach, you might not have enough time to pull up and go over it. This takes practice and getting used to, but once you manage it you will not want to visit Duna any other way: planes genuinely are a game changer here

Some pics of my Duna planes

Kerbin-Duna SSTO

STS Challenge Orbiter (Duna SSTO capable)

[MythicalHeFF]

Made a 100-meter fuel tank using a modded version of Tweakscale...

..and crashed it into Dres at 2/3 the speed of light using overclocked engines, delivering enough kinetic energy to destroy it entriely.

"I am become Death, destroyer of Dres". -Bob Kerman

Edited August 7, 2023 by Jack Joseph Kerman

[Davi SDF]

23 minutes ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Made a 100-meter fuel tank using a modded version of Tweakscale...

..and crashed it into Dres at 2/3 the speed of light using overclocked engines, delivering enough kinetic energy to destroy it entriely.

"I am become Death, destroyer of Dres". -Bob Kerman

Finally! No more Dres!!

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, Davi SDF said:

Finally! No more Dres!!

It's free real estate

[Akagi]

Just got FFT. Time to experiment with 110 meter long torch drives!

[Ker Ball One]

I had a dream about orbital dynamics weird

[Hotel26]

16 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I'd be pleasantly surprised if its stall speed is a wholesome 40m/s or lower (then it wouldn't need chutes).

Inspired by this, I conducted some trials.  Vs is 59 m/s, which, although not pleasant, is quite a bit lower than the 90 m/s approach speed I had been using.

Lining up on the runway is actually quite easy.

The one remaining difficulty was in getting the nose wheel to touch down and not immediately veer the craft causing wing tip damage.

I did work-around that, though! 

Landing with the nose-gear retracted works quite fine using the nose as a skid...  gave the Kerbals a chuckle.  (Locking the steering might work adequately as well and would be "engineering-pretty".)

I've also noted that I long ago loaded Batwing Mk2 before it had its Archer launcher.  I'll be updating that shortly.

Because I think it's the low atmospheric pressure, and hence low drag, on Duna that causes higher-speed landings, it's quite appropriate to install chutes for Duna, to use that same atmosphere to provide some airborne braking before touch-down.  I found also that the drag chutes on Batwing (4x Mk12-R) helps stabilize the landing attitude.  In addition, now reviewing this, I think using Mk-2R radial chutes (blue rectangles) would also be appropriate.  The drag chutes are already on a Cut switch.

Note that Batwing, fully fueled, is 21t.

Appreciate receiving the suggestions about Duna specifics!  I do so love incremental refinement!  Thanks all.

UPDATE: OK, it's possible without chutes or VERT thrust.  The trick is to ensure RCS is enabled for precise attitude control on a soft touch-down...

Edited August 8, 2023 by Hotel26

[RevanX_LSR]

On 8/6/2023 at 8:30 PM, JNSQFan said:

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.

With the failure of that mission. I thought i'll do some more testing for my modpack while thinking of a solution.

Here are some photos of Heyu, where the mission was headed:

The sun setting beneath the mountains.

The same image i took a few days ago. This was the same plane, but not the same sitting.

 

Canyon still has some terrain glitches, but most of them are fixed. Canyon, by the way, is the third and furthest moon of the homeworld. It is the same size as Stock Kerbin and is the only atmospheric moon of the homeworld.

Canyon still has some terrain glitches.

Just a nice sunset.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

"And he saw that before the steps of the horse lay the sea."

In my crusade against high launch costs, I found that all my current SSTO shuttles like Teardrop and Valkyrie are Nerva powered and have 3500 m/s or more of range. This results in high launch mass and low TWR on short range missions. All this is overkill if I just want to ferry some tourists to a station in orbit around Kerbin, Mun or Minmus.

I closed this gap, and proudly present to you:

'Sleipnir' Short Range Shuttle

1x Rapier
Delta-v: ~ 1620 m/s left after insertion into 100x100 km Kerbin orbit
TWR: 1.46 in low Kerbin orbit
Launch Mass: 19 tons
Price: 35,000
Crew capacity: 4
Cargo capacity: 200 L + 180 L
Docking: 1 Clamp-O-Tron Jr. port, RCS
(values without crew or cargo)

The handling turned out to be excellent, this baby is easy to fly and land

This will come in handy to ferry tourists to the upcoming Behemoth Mining System, an evolution of the Leviathan Miner. Stay tuned!

Spoiler

More pics in workshop:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017146114

Edit: as requested also on KerbalX:
https://kerbalx.com/Meltdown/Sleipnir-Short-Range-Shuttle

This is an addition to my collection of reusable launchers and shuttles:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2995059664

Edited August 9, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[Hotel26]

8 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

The handling turned out to be excellent

SteamCommunity (after 2FA login) is requiring me to Subscribe in order to Download.  Just a suggestion but you might consider also using KerbalX.com for sharing craft?  Do you already have an account there?

I'm going to try to reverse-engineer Sleipnir therefore.  Will not be quite certain to have exactly the same result but is always fun to try.  Thanks for posting!

Spoiler

UPDATE: Well, I've learned something already.  (The beauty of rev-eng, rather than down-load!)

Won't break the sound barrier with the Mk2-R chutes on the outside fuselage because they are really much more drag than I realized.  And switched them to Mk12-R...

Moving them inside the shielded Mk2 Clamp-O-Tron dock, as in Duke MelTdoWn's version, is essential.

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by Hotel26

[Duke MelTdoWn]

8 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

SteamCommunity (after 2FA login) is requiring me to Subscribe in order to Download.  Just a suggestion but you might consider also using KerbalX.com for sharing craft?  Do you already have an account there?

I was wondering why everybody here uses KerbalX links. I will look into creating an account!

If you try to reverse engineer Sleipnir, be aware that the MK2 Cargo bay is packed: 1x FL-400 tank, 3x MK0 LF tanks, Monoprop, Batteries, Solar, Antenna, Thermal, Parachutes, Docking Port Jr. As Hotel26 found out clean aerodynamics are essential for this design to work, this is why everything is crammed into the cargo bay.

Edit: here is the requested KerbalX link
https://kerbalx.com/Meltdown/Sleipnir-Short-Range-Shuttle

Edited August 9, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[Hotel26]

18 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

uses KerbalX links

Welcome aboard and thank you for posting at KerbalX!

[Martian Emigrant]

Hi all.

 

Finishing a new career and launched just for fun the Kerlab.

 

Next time I will launch and park assign a few of those rescued Kerbals in there.

 

ME

[The epic chicken]

Lining up on the runway, featuring my IL-76

Here's a link for anyone that wants to download and look at the 20K resolution version created with BOSS https://www.mediafire.com/file/4s18gtvqq1ttis3/SS_08-09-2023_15-53-52.png/file