What did you do in KSP1 today?

[king of nowhere]

I moved a boat on top of a mountain.

which is odd enough that it may be a world first no, many people who went for fast kerbin circumnavigation made boats with wheels.

however, my boat is carrying a plane on top of it. so, building a boat, sending it to laythe, dragging a plane over it, and pulling the whole contraption over a mountain... that, I bet nobody ever did before.

this is Garibarge. it would like to be an aircraft carrier, but I am a lousy pilot, I can't land a plane with any precision. hence I made a barge with a ramp that a plane can climb. i made it because the plane on top of the boat counts as landed instead of splashed down, and that allows collecting more science in the same biome.

Here's Garibarge's retractable underwater observation post, which I'm using to showcase that Garibarge has retractable wheels. Just in case I'd have to cross some land, which is happening right now.

Garibarge's propellers are also powerful enough to go straight uphill on Laythe. They can tackle 20° slopes easily

On top, I planted a flag stating "Garibarge was here"

 

On 3/19/2024 at 4:24 AM, MythicalHeFF said:

 I don't know if a chunk of white dwarf like this could actually exist in real life, but I just thought it'd be funny to give such a tiny object a stupidly high surface gravity. It's also supposed to be a lump of nearly pure carbon, essentially making it a 12-kilometer-wide diamond.

No, it could not actually exhist. Degenerate matter exhists at such density because it's subject to enormous pressure inside neutron stars. remove that pressure - by separating it from the rest of the star - and it will revert back to normal matter. just like a compressed gas will expand as soon as freed from whatever was keeping it compressed.

 

besides, it's not a diamond. a diamond is carbon with a specific crystal structure, giving it a density of 3.5 g/cm³. Widor has a density around 10⁸ g/cm³, so it's not diamond. I doubt it qualifies as "carbon" in the first place.

 

Edited March 26 by king of nowhere

[KerikBalm]

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

I made a barge with a ramp that a plane can climb. i made it because the plane on top of the boat counts as landed instead of splashed down, and that allows collecting more science in the same biome

Clever, I'll have to make use of that sometime.

I don't have the screenshots, but I finally figured out what the problem was with my normal maps (or at least a way to make them work, I don't know why they weren't working before) for a new planet I'm working on.

Its meant as a titan analogue, and thus has many similarities to Tekto. Previously my personal planet mods all focused on the inner solar system, and thuse would be compatible with OPM, but no longer.

I added a Saturn analogue (can't get Kopernicus rings working, the textures don't show up, need to figure that out), that just uses a texture of Saturn. Jool's smaller sister I'm calling Soong.

At the moment, it only has one moon (I think I will move Minmus and Ike there to keep it company): Brumo

Brumo's stats are more like Titan than Tekto's: 0.14 G (vs 0.25 of Tekto), and 1.5 atmospheres at sea level (vs 1.25 of Tekto). The Mk2 lifting body parts + a few control surfaces are perfectly sufficient for touchdown at 10-20 m/s.

The heightmap is still WIP, there are large flat plains (from the sides of the heightmap)  that I plan to add some more features to (respect to anyone who can identify what this heightmap is derived from)

The color map is even more WIP:

Titan may have polar lakes, but Brumo has polar seas (bonus: much easier to avoid artifacts at the poles).

Its got mountains, drainage channels, rivers, lakes (well, one, more to come), bays, a cryovolcano (smaller ones to be added).

I also plan on adding: undersea mounts (so you can make offshore mining bases like this):

Spoiler

or mining boats like this:

 

Undersea trenches and ridges,

some polygonal terrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterned_ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygonal_patterned_ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#Surface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)#Chaos_and_lenticulae

sand dunes; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)#Dark_equatorial_terrain

And, why not some mesas too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley

It's a really high res heightmap (8192x4096), about 4x most heightmap resolutions (2048x1024), so I want to pack a lot of detail and interesting features into this "medium-sized" moon.

I say medium-sized, because it is proportionately sized - bigger than Mun, but about half the size of the giant moons of Jool (Laythe and Tylo), which are significantly bigger than duna and moho, and are proportionately much bigger than the moons of Jupiter.

[Aelfhe1m]

Finished the initial sub-orbital programmes for my latest RSS RP-1 playthrough by 3 October 1955 (in game date).

All flights are being automated as fully as I can using a combination of KOS, Smart Parts and MechJeb and I'm reporting on all the flights and major decisions in a "news reporter style" thread, illustrated with "newspaper photo" AI generated art work and photoshopped screenshots:

[Krazy1]

Today in KSP I reloaded KSP...

[WRN 15:33:23.337] [OrbitDriver Warning!]: Zellan Kerman had a NaN Orbit and was removed.

 

[Hotel26]

Wiring up propeller-propulsion engines is quite the pain in the sternum, is it not, and a major deterrent?  Which is a pity because these things are so efficient (running on fuel cells/LFOX trickle-feed) and because there's a good argument for their use on Duna.

I have now what I think is a single assembly containing left & right forward 'propellers' and left & right rear "repellers'.  The intention is that you connect this to a node (a temporary, dummy octa cube, if necessary), then clone each of the engines you need, multiple times if necessary, and position them on your vehicle.

In one variation, the 'small' size rotor, blades and shroud can be connected to an NCS adapter with a trailing tiny air intake, which looks quite spiffy.  So I will add an NCS adapter into the auxiliary control stack (with the Mk0 LF tank), for cloning: all of the tanks are modified for LFOX (rather than standard LF only). 

Cloning should implicitly carry across all the control "wiring" for Brakes, RCS, Main Throttle and Custom01 (Keypad '*' and '/') for fan blade pitch.  Huzzah!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: the base engine has 40 blades and I am not currently sure how this was engineered (even with the multi-symmetry trick) by the inventor: @_Rade KerbalX/Rade.

See his Red Arrow machine.

Note that rpm is limited to 420 due to the momentum of 40 blades, but I may reduce this to an even 36 if that gets the max rpm up to the putative max of 460 rpm.

So, how did he do it?  I don't know^[1].  But if I had a gun pointed at my head (and I do), I'd rev-eng the craft file and invoke the mythical Mathematical Python to digitally place N blades.

Reader poll: is it a "Garrett turbofan" or will it be a "Raddett turbofan"?  We will see...

[1] I assume, therefore, he is a genius.

UPDATE: OK, so the symmetry hack works for this.  I've just made a 36-blade rotor using 6x6 symmetry.  To get 40, you would make 8x6 (48) and then use Sh-X (8 times) to decrement the number down to 40.

Edited April 1 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

UPDATE: OK, with the 40-blade engines fitted, Elektra manages 193 m/s @ 5300m.  It can fly on its 6 wing panels alone with sunlight, but it's probably worth dumping their mass/drag and doing without.

(This photo is before the wing incidence increase to 9 degrees and with 24 blades, before the upgrade to 40.)

[Kimera Industries]

1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

UPDATE: OK, with the 40-blade engines fitted, Elektra manages 193 m/s @ 5300m.  It can fly on its 6 wing panels alone with sunlight, but it's probably worth dumping their mass/drag and doing without.

(This photo is before the wing incidence increase to 9 degrees and with 24 blades, before the upgrade to 40.)

I tried making a Duna plane once. You're going about it quite smarter than I did. How do you plan to land, though? My attempts resulted in a lot of bouncing.

[GDJ]

Stability testing. So far so good.

[Hotel26]

5 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

My attempts resulted in a lot of bouncing.

A really good question and for a long time, I had believed that "on Duna, why wouldn't you just use chutes to land and then taxi".   

So the first part of the answer is that a distinct advantage of using a turbofan is that reducing the blade pitch causes a lot of drag suddenly at speed and applies quite effective braking -- in the air!  On the ground, you can easily go into reverse pitch and quickly halt (or reverse!) the aircraft.  Of course, in the final moments, you are going to drop out of the air, but if you flare and fly low and time the arrest just over a higher point: well, you might get lucky!  No, you should get lucky!

The second part of the answer is to build a Dunaport (see below), with or without a runway.  Effectively, produce a giant flat spot on Duna.  Without a runway, you can land in any direction (like the very old days of aviation).  With a runway, you need a couple of aiming points ("navaids", a.k.a. flags) at least 10km from the runway ends so that you can line up on the runway well in advance.  As we know, turns are very slow (and wide) to execute on Duna due to the thin atmosphere!

(How do you build a Dunaport?  Kerbal Konstructs.  I actually found it totally unusable for seven years until @Caerfinon wrote his wonderful guide for Getting Started With Kerbal Konstructs.)

Edited March 30 by Hotel26

[N_Danger]

Time for a Minmus mission

Jeb at one of his 2 landing sites

Of course we went RCSing about

And we return in a ball of fire

[GDJ]

Now this was a fun plane to fly. Pulls 15+ G's without stalling. Makes the Kerbals barf, but they earn points if they land.......

[Krazy1]

Finished getting science around Eve and went to Gilly. Had under 2% fuel left. Just got a contract to rescue a kerbonaut and their ship from Gilly orbit... but I had several other contracts for Moho. So I'll pick up the kerbonaut now and get the ship on the way back from Moho.

More pics:

Spoiler

[Hotel26]

As an addendum to my earlier post about managing Duna landings,   @Kimera Industries

To illustrate my earlier thinking, Batwing Mk3 was equipped with drag chutes to slow down (in a shallow zoom), would then pop main chutes for a vertical descent, but was equipped with 4x Cub Vernier engines to control and arrest the final touch-down.  Pretty much a foolproof system.

[Kimera Industries]

8 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

As an addendum to my earlier post about managing Duna landings,   @Kimera Industries

To illustrate my earlier thinking, Batwing Mk3 was equipped with drag chutes to slow down (in a shallow zoom), would then pop main chutes for a vertical descent, but was equipped with 4x Cub Vernier engines to control and arrest the final touch-down.  Pretty much a foolproof system.

Using rockets to land a plane is probably the safest way on Duna. But at that point, if you want to hop around the planet you may as well use an ISRU hopper. 

[TheFlyingKerman]

11 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

Using rockets to land a plane is probably the safest way on Duna. But at that point, if you want to hop around the planet you may as well use an ISRU hopper. 

Helicopters work on Mars Duna.

https://ibb.co/mv5Hvth

https://ibb.co/qpNZPCq

 

https://ibb.co/pJdg669

 

[N_Danger]

Time to go to Duna

On station gathering science

 

[Hotel26]

Quote

Helicopters work on Mars Duna Kerbin.

I'll have some numbers for Duna shortly.  (36-blade engines!)

You will receive all credit for this one, @TheFlyingKerman!!  Thank you very much for leading the way.   

Edited April 1 by Hotel26

[Geek.Verve]

Mission Report: Space Truckin' ...or... If It's Crazy, but It Works, Maybe It Ain't Crazy

I got a contract to build a space station in orbit of the Mun. I also already had one on deck to dock two vessels in Munar orbit.  This gave me a crazy idea. If I were to position a station loaded with fuel in Munar orbit, it would expedite my Munar science collection efforts. I could dock a lander at the station and just make hops to and from various biomes on the surface. This may sound like a trivial task for most of you, but I'm still hardly what anyone might consider a qualified space program simulation administrator...or pilot...or engineer. I'm nothing if not perseverant, though, and I don't appear to have any qualms about throwing Kerbals into the danger zone. I'll leave the sorting of that one to my therapist.

Almost giddy, I handed the project of designing a vessel that could get as much fuel as possible to the Mun to the Kerbal engineers. They seemed excited by the prospect. Then worried. Then scared. Then excited again. It's really kind of tough to gauge their moods at any given moment. Anyway, after hours at the drawing board, this is what those krazy little kritters came up with...

 

It was clear they were working with house money, because at well over a quarter-million funds, this is by far the most expensive vessel we've ever designed. They assured me that it would be a success...or it wouldn't. I guess that's the sort of professional, educated projections I've come to expect from them. I'm sure there is a far more efficient method to go about this, but this level of precision is what I've come to expect for what I pay them.  Out to the launch pad we go...

 

Honestly, what were the chances this thing was going to make it to space in one piece, anyway? As it turns out, those chances were 1 in 4, because that's how many trips back to the VAB it took to get this monstrosity to avoid rattling itself apart by 1km altitude or just pitching over and making a beeline into the mountains/ocean/Space Center...well, you get the idea.  Once I was able to get out of the atmosphere, things went pretty smoothly, though MechJeb doesn't seem to have ANY idea how to handle a vessel of this size, repeatedly missing burn windows. Nothing a minor correction burn or two wouldn't fix.

 

Finally, here is my Munar fuel depot, quite surprisingly right where it's supposed to be. The mission was a success, and I now have a full 7,200 liquid fuel/oxidizer reserve, ready to supply some Mun hopping. My next trip up will include all the station science modules and gear and the Kerbals to run it. I feel like I actually accomplished something with this one.

 

Edited April 1 by Geek.Verve

[Geonovast]

Easily one of my favorite views in the game.  Been doing a lot of orbital construction with a shuttle lately.

[Kimera Industries]

Shenanigans.

That's what I did. Shenanigans.

I experimented with a War-of-the-Worlds-style tripod. Imagine my surprise when it successfully walks first try with the rudimentary KAL algorithm I gave it.

Then, in my new career save, I threw together this plane in less than a minute (no joke) and it flew perfectly. 

It has a jet engine on the bottom to fulfill a contract and handles well. The level 1 KSC is easy on my framerate, too! 

I also got my screenshots for the next WoRM mission ready. Korolev 10 coming soon!

Edited April 2 by Kimera Industries

[Pipcard]

[ARA] Y2, D339 - The first module of a factory is added to Castor Base on Minmus, with the eventual goal of enabling off-world manufacturing using local resources.

Edited April 2 by Pipcard

[Geonovast]

Construction of the space hotel continues.

[kspbutitscursed]

 mission to minmus 

[Iapetus7342]

I built and tested a Nuclear Salt Water rocket by sending a probe to the Mun and back. It failed to even reach orbit because there weren't enough radiators aboard.  

[N_Danger]

I sent a probe to Eve

Arrival at Eve