What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Krazy1]

7 hours ago, Aerodynamic Kerbal said:

the cockpit overheated and exploded (I have a theory that this happened because the Mk.1  cockpit doesnt have enough drag and 'lift' compared the Mk2.)

Mk1 cockpit is rated 2000K skin and 1100 K internal... Mk2 is 2500K/ 1300K. That's a huge difference. It's hard to reenter with a Mk1. Personally I'd swap the cockpit and shock cone intakes. 1 shock cone is enough air for 2 Rapiers so I'd put that on the center - it can take 2400K and it will get the most heat because it sticks out farther in front. The 2 cockpits should be "a little" cooler then and have 2 crew too.

7 hours ago, Aerodynamic Kerbal said:

One little "cheat" here, I had to use the NERV during reentry a bit because electricity was knocking on my door (I had no generators)

That's not cheating... that's just planning after you succeed. 

I just learned something... if you pause and then press F2 to hide HUD, you can use the mouse to move the camera, so you can relax when taking action screenshots.

I'm still flying PAX around JNSQ Kerbin, hoping a drag bug in addon cargo bays can be fix before I launch my next big interplanetary lander. Cruising at 1700 m/s, 22 km alt.

 More pics:

Spoiler

Eve pre-dawn:

 

 

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

On 8/20/2023 at 7:41 PM, Krazy1 said:

Could you send a video from the mechanical astral plane you're on so we mere mortals can understand this thing? 

I did make a video of one of the engines running!

No clue what to power with this beast tho..
I also did a cinematic test shot of a craft going through a station orbiting Caeruleum! (The craft is on my steam workshop page as "Bee shuttle", and is stock)

I may retake this shot after I add Caeruleum's three moons, though only one moon will be visible as.. well.. one will be TINY,  not even the size of Gilly, orbiting within the rings, and the other one will be the size of Minmus, orbiting slightly further from Caeruleum than Minmus orbits Kerbin. The big moon will be the size of Ike, and an arid desert. There will not be any EVE clouds added to Caeruleum as it entirely lacks a global cloud layer.

[Aerodynamic Kerbal]

2 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

I'm still flying PAX around JNSQ Kerbin, hoping a drag bug in addon cargo bays can be fix before I launch my next big interplanetary lander. Cruising at 1700 m/s, 22 km alt.

How did you get the Sun to look like that?

[Krazy1]

1 hour ago, Aerodynamic Kerbal said:

How did you get the Sun to look like that?

I think this is the standard JNSQ sunflare. I also have Scatterer Sunflare (and Scatterer) installed. I found the textures here... GameData\JNSQ\JNSQ_Textures\scatterer\Esther_G

[Watermel00n]

Built a goofy nuclear SSTO with the *hint hint*

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/4XRGAMh

well i hope no one lives on kerbin...

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Watermel00n

[RevanX_LSR]

50 minutes ago, Watermel00n said:

Built a goofy nuclear SSTO with the *hint hint*

  Hide contents

https://imgur.com/4XRGAMh

well i hope no one lives on kerbin...

 

i challenge you to a Revan SSTO. I had a go at a Vera SSTO, easier than JNSQ kerbin, from the surface to orbit and back (and failed). Probably the ssto was overkill.

[stephensmat]

I have a policy of sending 'Science outposts' to every planet and moon I can. Pretty basic. A science lab, all the experiments I can weld onto it, a crew of two or three, and a power source. Just enough to let science points come in 24/7.

Mods have given me new standards for Colonies.

The module on the Right is my 'original' Minmus outpost. (With the engines and landing legs removed to give the thing some stability.) The ground to the right of that is a series of experiments I had left.

Next addition will likely be fuel generation. Bad place for it, as far as Minmus goes, but I'm still experimenting with these mods and wanted the flat ground.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

I continued my crusade against high launch costs. Presenting Super Guppy III, a fugly cargo SSTO that can put 2 orange Rockomax tanks into orbit.

'Super Guppy III' Heavy Cargo SSTO
12x Rapier
Delta-v: ~ 420 m/s left after insertion into 75x75 km Kerbin orbit
TWR: ~1.40 in low Kerbin orbit
Launch Mass: 181 tons + 74 tons payload
Price: 172,489
Crew capacity: none
Cargo capacity: 3x Mk3 Cargo Bay CRG-50

This is about the 250th iteration on the Super Guppy concept. This time the aerodynamics during reentry and final approach actually work, as opposed to Super Guppy I and Super Guppy II! Mark III is also a little bit cheaper because it does not use any Nervas and has less parts.

During one of the test flights I overshot KSC and landed at Island Airbase, which proved that the low speed glide characteristics are excellent (and the brake chutes work).

Spoiler

Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3025581263

KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Meltdown/Super-Guppy-III-Heavy-Cargo-SSTO

Edited August 27, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[Hotel26]

16 minutes ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

a fugly cargo SSTO that can put 2 orange Rockomax tanks into orbit

Fugly is also in the eye of the beholder, and to my eye, that isn't anywhere near my own standard for fugly; but I will not quibble with obvious talent. 

Orange tanks are fugly, always; I will grant you that.  And I see, your orange tanks look like "Intellitanks" to me.  (You're pulled up at the red light and this 'thing' screeches up next to you and revs its engines awaiting the green and you look across and it's a double-fuel-tank.  What the...?)

That's well done, I say.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Hotel26

[Duke MelTdoWn]

If it was not a descendant of the 'Super Guppy' line, I would have named it 'Sea Turtle'. There is something about the way it holds it wings ...

And my take on the 'Intellitank' sucks, because as it turns out, a MK3 Cargo Bay is not large enough to shield a Rockomax Jumbo-64 from drag. So I better build this out of 4x  Rockmax X200-32 tanks next time. After I discovered the additional drag, I still continued to use this as test payload because I wanted my notes to stay comparable over all the different iterations of the Super Guppy while I tweaked the delta-V.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[N_Danger]

A Lander was sent off to Nevin to pre-position it  for an crew.

Trans Nevin burn.

In orbit waiting for a tanker and crew.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

5 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Orange tanks are fugly, always; I will grant you that.  And I see, your orange tanks look like "Intellitanks" to me. 

The Intellitank design of Hotel26 inspired me to rework the Orbital Fuel Depot. It is now easier on the eyes and circumvents the bug that Rockomax Jumbo-64 tanks cause drag even if they are inside Mk.3 Cargo Bays.

"Refresh yourself! For me too, girl, that foaming draught, that fresh, healthy look."

Orbital Fuel Depot II
4x Spark
Delta-v (vaccum): 5231 m/s
TWR: 0.12 in low Kerbin orbit
Mass: 70.2 tons
Price: 26,044
LF: 6600
OX: 5400
Docking: 2x Clamp-O-Tron, 2x Jr., 2x Sr. docking ports, RCS

The reduced drag (and slightly lower payload mass down from 74 tons) allowed the Super Guppy III to place it into a higher orbit. Screenshots are from 500x500 km and I had 259 m/s left  Top speed airbreathing was 1462 m/s (surface) at 23 km. Lift/Drag ratio 3.5 at Mach 5.8 and 34 km (pointed prograde relative to surface).

Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3026774079

KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Meltdown/Orbital-Fuel-Depot-II

Edited August 27, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[Krazy1]

4 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

because as it turns out, a MK3 Cargo Bay is not large enough to shield a Rockomax Jumbo-64 from drag.

Yeah, I found that too. I think each cargo part has to be entirely inside a single cargo bay part to shield drag. KSP does not consider multiple bay parts as a single big bay when occluding drag. Pretty lazy IMO. So any combination of tanks as long as 2x Jumbo-64s will have a middle tank that bridges between cargo bay parts and will have drag. BTW all of the addon bays I've tried (DaMichel's CargoBays and Airplanes Plus) have no drag occlusion at all.

29 minutes ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

The Intellitank design of Hotel26 inspired me to rework the Orbital Fuel Depot. It is now easier on the eyes and circumvents the bug that Rockomax Jumbo-64 tanks cause drag even if they are inside Mk.3 Cargo Bays.

But there's still 1 part that has drag right? I suppose you could have 2 sections of satellite that are redocked inside the cargo bay before deploying it in orbit. 2 more docking ports though

[Duke MelTdoWn]

1 hour ago, Krazy1 said:

Yeah, I found that too. I think each cargo part has to be entirely inside a single cargo bay part to shield drag. KSP does not consider multiple bay parts as a single big bay when occluding drag. Pretty lazy IMO. So any combination of tanks as long as 2x Jumbo-64s will have a middle tank that bridges between cargo bay parts and will have drag. BTW all of the addon bays I've tried (DaMichel's CargoBays and Airplanes Plus) have no drag occlusion at all.

But there's still 1 part that has drag right? I suppose you could have 2 sections of satellite that are redocked inside the cargo bay before deploying it in orbit. 2 more docking ports though

No, seems to be 0 drag if you use Rockmax X200-32 or smaller. If I just could keep it straight on the runway, I hit the lights at the end (again) and shaved off 4 engines 

Spoiler

Edit: I think I saw a video (maybe Kerbal University: The Drag Cube) where it said that KSP checks if the tank fits  into the fairing by considering the longest axis. So maybe this is why the X200-32 have no drag even if they overlap multiple cargo bays.

Edit 2: Bombing run - I missed

Spoiler

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[Hotel26]

1 hour ago, Krazy1 said:

each cargo part has to be entirely inside a single cargo bay part to shield drag. KSP does not consider multiple bay parts as a single big bay when occluding drag.

Thank you, @Duke MelTdoWn and @Krazy1: I've learned something from your interchange.

[RevanX_LSR]

I made a manned mission to Eve that failed. I thought it wouldn’t be too hard after LSR and the craft probably would have made it, if not for the craft strangely overturning on entry. Also, I did need a fuel tanker which would dock in an eccentric orbit that the main craft left off and re-filled the tank. I had so much fuel that I decided to land the tanker on the Mun and return. (it did not survive re-entry).

 

I will keep you updated and send a mission with pics when i get a successful attempt.

[Krazy1]

1 hour ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

No, seems to be 0 drag if you use Rockmax X200-32 or smaller.

I think the video that covers this is HERE. So weird. That's just makes no physical sense. 

30 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

I've learned something from your interchange.

Well, me too. It seems best to test all the parts to verify the drag like Duke did.

Textbook approach to C.Yeager. Kerbal textbook. Not stabilized. Right wheel, then nose wheel, then left wheel. Only need half of a level 2 runway to stop a 250 t hypersonic plane. Then taxi on the grass to the terminal.

[MythicalHeFF]

I finally landed on Tylo in Alternis Kerbol after almost an entire week of preparing the mission, failing over and over again to design a lander, and flying it to Tylo. For those unfamiliar, Alternis Kerbol is one of the oldest planet packs for KSP, and essentially what it does is rearrange the Kerbol System, as well as changing various things about the celestial bodies themselves. For example, Kerbin is now a moon of Jool, Eeloo is now much larger and has Vall as a moon, Ike is now a comet, and Tylo.. well, Tylo has been hitting the gym, it seems. It now has a radius of 1,103 km and a crushing surface gravity of 4 gees, making it extremely difficult to land on. Just landing seems to take roughly 8,000 m/s of delta-V, as you lose an insane amount of it due to gravity.

To my knowledge, only two other players have landed and returned from Super Tylo before, but, as far as I can tell, I am the first to do it using a (nearly) entirely powered landing.  I say "nearly" because I did use a couple of parachutes, but, as it turns out, at the altitude I landed at, there was barely enough pressure for them to even deploy, making their effect essentially negligible. I'm also the first to bring a rover with me, so there's that.

Here's a music video showcasing the many failed landing attempts, both in testing and on the real mission, as well as the final, successful attempt.

I still haven't finished the mission yet, as, me being me, I want to try and conduct a long-range rover exploration before going home.

 

[RedTyro]

I'm a few days into my first experience with RSS/RO and doing an RP-1 career.  Today (ok, yesterday) I launched my first X plane and broke the sound barrier (and then some).  It's very loosely based on the Bell X-1:

[Krazy1]

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Just landing seems to take roughly 8,000 m/s of delta-V

Wow. Double bird to that planet. It has 6.5 km/s low orbit... same as stock Jool. Will a rover even get up a slight hill or be able to stop downhill? Good luck!

[MythicalHeFF]

14 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

Wow. Double bird to that planet. It has 6.5 km/s low orbit... same as stock Jool. Will a rover even get up a slight hill or be able to stop downhill? Good luck!

The rover can go uphill okay, as that is what I specifically designed it for (having a high wheel to mass ratio). Things get a bit dicey, however, when it comes to going downhill, as you gain speed so quickly that it’s very easy to be fine one moment and barreling to your doom at 100+ m/s the next. Another annoying thing is wheel failures, as under this gravity they happen very easily.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

I am currently trying to squeeze as much utility into the MK3 cargo bays of the Super Guppy III as I can.

The Compact Exploration System will be modular so the stack can be reconfigured for different phases of the flight.

Currently I have the first two modules ready in LKO for a test flight to the Mun.

The passenger Ferry seats 8. It is build around a Nerva to keep the cabins warm. Please excuse the part overlap.

The Lander/Miner has 4 Sparks for additional thrust during final approach and liftoff. I had to use a small converter and 4x small drills to fit this into the cargo bay. So refueling will take some time.

The Nerva of the Ferry fires through the miner stage below to optimize thrust. I don't care what Sergei says.

I still need to build the orbital lab and the interplanetary transfer stage. Plenty of space left in that cargo bay - stay tuned

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Duke MelTdoWn

[RevanX_LSR]

I stopped planning the Eve thing since its a bit hard (aerodynamically) and there are many easier things to do in the Kerbol System, including tylo, which doesn't need much (just two ordinary stages) and is fun! 

 

Here are some images I got from my plane flying over Vera with KopernicusExpansion (there is a small bug in 0.9.2). The terrain looks pretty good.

The planet is 1650km radius (2.5x scale) and otherwise similar to kerbin with the exception of the (fixed) rings. These mountains are about 15km and are above the 'snow line' which is ~7km on this warm planet.

The rings visible here.

Slightly blocky. Not too bad up close though.

[MythicalHeFF]

I completed the Super Tylo mission in Alternis Kerbol, after roving around for a bit and deciding that a true long-distance rover trip here would be next to impossible, as the wheels have a tendency to break at the slightest inconvenience under this gravity.

Originally, I wanted to try and get my rover down into the low-lying brown area as shown in this screenshot, but this area is surrounded by extremely steep cliffs and fjords on pretty much all sides.

As you can see from the view from near the edge of one of them: while driving downhill is possible, on steep terrain like this, I would have to constantly switchback, which is practically suicidal due to how much speed you gain when you are facing directly downhill

I ended up driving about 55 km from my original landing site before deciding to turn back, and ended up taking a different route back, essentially going in a big circle.

Once we had made it back to the lander, the Sandwich, we launched back into orbit, which went surprisingly well, and I got the ascent down on my first attempt (as opposed to the over 20 attempts it took to land. This place is essentially Eve in reverse.)

I then made my rendezvous, and EVA'd Nedzer and Hairy Kerman to the "Dante" return capsule, and made my way back home.

Overall, I'm still pretty proud of how this mission turned out, as I accomplished my goal of landing and returning from super Tylo, as well as (as far as I can tell) being the first person to do it with multiple kerbals and a rover, as well as an almost entirely powered landing. If you're an experienced KSP player looking for a real challenge, I would highly suggest that you try this out: it's even harder that it looks. I remember going into this challenge thinking "I will own this" and promptly having my KSP ego deflated as a result.

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Jack Joseph Kerman

[Hotel26]

6 minutes ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

have to constantly switchback

Spoiler

Voice: "Use the 'falling leaf' maneuver I taught you, Luke!" 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Hotel26