What did you do in KSP1 today?

[ColdJ]

Got everything I plan to do on the SU-57 finished today, Going to try a nice flat sided Mig 31 next.

 

Spoiler

 

[SpacePixel]

I snapped this screenshot after a test flight, and I think it beautifully conveys the scale of some of our spacecraft that we don't often get to really appreciate.  So, in the foreground we have the affectionately named "Space Yacht 2". It differs from 1 in that it has half as many rotating RAPIERs, consequently losing the ability to VTOL on Kerbin, though it can still do that on Duna. It retained the two-storied cargo bay, where on the lower level you store your rovers and refineries, and on the upper deck your rotorcraft. Finally, it gained 2 NERVs tucked away in the ramp segment; they can be fired when the ramp is lowered. Though certainly not dragless or overpowered, it easily breaks the sound barrier thanks to swiveling nacelles -- you can tilt them in flight to achieve 0 AoA and a massive reduction in drag.

[Qwotty]

Today as of writing this was a big step forward in terms of learning farther out space traveling and modding KSP into being more astronomical spent cracking the code metaphorically speaking regarding Xenon engines through playing around with them, thus learning how to effectively use them efficiently henceforward,  and led to noticing that, while thrust might be a hot topic for some folks, when you’re deep in space with your high delta-v capabilities, the small thrust of the Xenon engines becomes a dubious concern for the most part. They might not deliver the massive kick you get from those big roaring LFO engines, but they can get you tens of thousands delta-v more and with a smaller design that is more lightweight. And hybrid systems such as those with action group switching are indeed valid viable strategies for spaceship design. That being said, either way, the lesson learned was that — no matter what you do with your Xenon engines — make sure that you bring enough batteries and make sure that the ship can load up on electric charge steadily, because they drink up electricity like thirsty people drink water, especially when using Xenon engine clusters. Fun was had using Mun to keep swinging by it to do gravity assists that lead to larger and larger apogees until an eventual escape trajectory hyperbolic orbit, which then led to radio silence, because I forgot to add any antennas to my deep space test probe.

The reason for all of this Xenon engine testing was simple: with the Infinite Discoveries program that uses Kopernicus to add other solar systems, that much delta-v is needed to reach interstellar distances, such as something like "Kerbol System escape velocity", which is not possible in the stock version of KSP without modding like Infinite Discoveries that adds other stars with spheres of influence to travel to, which was therefore put in scare quotes thusly to illustrate that because unmodded KSP provides you no other outside spheres of influences, thus no place for leaving points for an escape trajectory to be. That is why mods like Infinite Discoveries are essential if you want to do any Voyager-esque missions or anything of the sort. That being said, with stock parts, you are going to run out of fuel before you even get close to stars, because they cannot give you the parsecs of change in velocity that are required to travel veritably literally astronomically far distances. But you can use them to do what both Voyager space probes did. If it was possible for NASA because their physics checked out, it follows logically for the most part that you could do the same in KSP with clever calculated combinations of gravity assists. It is this type of Hohmann transfer orbit gravity assisting in combination with the Xenon usage mastery and finally learning how to use the Alcubierre drive mods to travel to the stars provided by the Infinite Discoveries program that made it feel imperative to post about, seeing as this is more technical and involved than something like a Mun mission on a rudimentary rocketship and the enthusiasm as of writing this about going beyond the Kerbol System was palpable. Pictured below with KSP GIF animated images is the spaceship utilizing Alcubierre drive engine technology that I built to use for doing interstellar traveling amongst the stars that Infinite Discoveries provides. Quite small indeed in terms of payload size for something that can enable faster-than-light travel by manipulating spacetime. The darned thing fell over while unfurling the dish reflectors to record opening them up as you can see below, which was due to forgetting that the RFL-50 Large Dish Reflector goes below the rest of the spaceship after deployment. And that funny tumble wraps up my elaboration on what I did in Kerbal Space Program the day of writing this, which was doing the fun Xenon engine test stuff written about in detail above, and then waking up and figuring out how to use Alcubierre drive engines. The following post will no doubt be about documenting the interstellar travels that using these types of spaceships makes possible to the celestial bodies that Infinite Discoveries imparts.

 

Edited July 31 by Qwotty

[SpacePixel]

The Big T is your smallest large spaceplane. What is that even supposed to mean? Well, unlike some of its more gargantuan brethren, The Big T does not seem horribly out of scale for anything useful, as it's about the smallest you can go after you ditch Mk3 for 5m fuselage and has an actual purpose.

It's meant so solve a problem I had 4 years ago when I still had time to fly the crafts I built. I saw that SSTOs are more often limited by cargo bay dimensions rather than upmass potential. At 60 meters long, the T features a gigantic 5m cargo bay spanning the length of the craft. The nose swivels up for loading and unloading; since the nose stores a lot of fuel and is thus pretty damn heavy, an elaborate system of pistons and hinges helps raise it up under gravity.

The wing is designed so as not to clip in the cargo bay and angled at 3 degrees. 8 RAPIERS in the engine assembly as offset 5 degrees to reduce torque.

[Qwotty]

The day this was written was indeed as previously stated it would be filled with playing around with the randomly generated planets that Infinite Discoveries had created. Pictured below is the first planet ever visited with or without a Kerbal using a spaceship named Fliboul, and the ship that I created for visiting other star systems. It was put into orbit around Fliboul using Hyperedit because that was before the way to get to the new stars added by the Infinite Discoveries was learned.

I thought that it was more of a Hohmann transfer type of deal, but learned that, when using warp drives that can fly in a linear path directly to the target, there's essentially no need to plan a maneuver such as that,  
It is as simple as pointing target prograde and firing your Alcubierre drive engine. 

Even so, when traveling such far distances, even FTL speeds seem to take a while.
That is why Hyperedit was used the first time around: so that the interstellar travel part could be skipped.
As you can see, I built a dummy Alcubierre drive ring thing with Rockomax HubMax Multi-Point Connectors and Modular Girder Segment XLs first yet ended up putting an actual Alcubierre drive right below it, yet never ended up actually using the latter in the activating the engine sense, thus three levels of irony. 
The ship was meant to be a cool-looking "teleporter ship" that served to be more a movie prop anyway, and I think that it did that quite well. 


Not pictured above however is the spaceship that I made for checking out the Sulphtempe solar system that hosts Fliboul, which I launched and docked to the "teleporter ship" because doing "spaceship teleportation" using Hyperedit. 

The planet that I went to's host body star Sulphtempe happened to be a red star.
That of which orbits another star.

I spent time in orbit firing Xenon gas adjusting the orbit.
It was quite fast as far as Xenon burns go.

After a while, I decided that, based on my observations that the planet had indeed possessed low gravity similar to Minmus or Mun, it was time to land.
Even though the spaceship wasn't designed to be a lander.


The spaceship ended up landing on an incline.
That did not help things at all.


It ended up rolling all the way down the hill.
And an RCS port blew up as it rolled.

I had enough EVA monopropellant to reach the peak of the mountain pictured above, but I opted not to, because I didn't want to have to worry about fuel and whatnot.
And that was about the end of the mission going according to plan at all.


As is obvious from the funny screenshot above, the lander did not want to take off properly and ended up spinning out.
It flew around in a haphazard motion like a ball of paper in the wind.

...so then I figured I would try putting Valentina Kerman into orbit using the EVA jetpack.
It ended up working for the most part.


If the burn would have been better, I would have been able to make Valentina reach a safe orbit.
Alas, she only made it to an about around four-thousand-meter perigee, meaning a collision was ahead.
 

Above is a screenshot I took that takes a snapshot of the last moment before the brave Kerbonaut Valentina Kerman who I sent on this mission slammed into a Fliboulian hill at high speed.
It is neat little adventures like these that tell stories that are why I am not only so grateful for Kerbal Space Program, but also the incredible mods like Infinite Discoveries that add more than the game ships with.

Edited August 1 by Qwotty

[NHunter]

It's been forever since I actually played KSP, but I've jumped back recently, and resumed my Beyond Home career. Aside from trying to remember what the hell I was actually doing there before the hiatus, I've updated my Gateway lander spaceplane to handle Janus, and launched it to Kerbol system.

This thing required a bit of fiddling and orbital assembly: spaceplane had to be launched separately and so did the adaptor to allow it to dock to the transfer craft (and then there was a small hickup when I discovered that due to an engineering oversight, the spaceplane can't use it's engines when docked to adaptor, so some RCS abuse was required to finish the assembly). But the craft is now on the way, and should arrive actually ahead of the main expedition that is currently swinging by Kerbol on its way to Tribute.

[SpacePixel]

Not really a VTOL, as the single RAPIER, although on a hinge, can't supply enough static thrust to lift the aircraft off the ground, but closed cycle or a short takeoff run does the trick. The Barbaris is a compact exploration craft, featuring a triple fuselage. The lower fuselage holds an intake, engine on a swivel, landing gear and the main wing. Above the lower fuselage, there's two more - the left and the right. The left has a cockpit and the right can be swapped out to supply additional fuel, crew of two in a passenger module, or a set of science experiments. This unorthodox arrangement ensures the center of mass is aligned with the center of thrust in VTOL mode and in vacuum, and the fuel drain has no impact on its position. More than that, the wings fold to barely fit the aircraft in Mk3 cargo bay (see spoiler).

It's not terribly easy to fly and land, especially on Laythe, although a skilled pilot will manage, but I still think this architecture is massively superior to uninspired double rotating nacelles (as a matter of fact, seen above on my previous craft)

Spoiler

 

 

[Qwotty]

I learned how to create custom planets in Kerbal Space Program using Kopernicus by creating .cfg files, wherein you can set parameters like size, gravity, orbital path, and atmosphere. It took big amounts of trial and error to figure that type of thing out, but I did, and pictured below is the spaceship that I sent to a custom planet. It is quite fun to build then launch spaceships to go test them out, although that is not inherently necessary per se. I'm sure that I will end up sharing what I create after it gets too pretty and nifty to gatekeep and whatnot, but for now as of writing this, I am still figuring out things. You'd think that the hard part would be the art, but that doesn't seem to be the case ironically enough, seeing as there are things like terrain noise picture generators and resources for creating seamless textures, and I know how to use all of that stuff, which is what got me hooked on the whole planet creation thing. That stuff is as cool as being able to randomly generate planets and moons (as well as even stars) using the Infinite Discoveries program, and then copy the .cfg files it generates, and then tweak them so that they plug in to your systems how you want them to instead. That is something that I tried and the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you can do with Kopernicus and Visual Studio Code.


...and here it is doing a solar panel helicopter type of spin in an atmosphere that shouldn't be green, but was because the planet used a Jool template.
At least I figured out how to make a gas giant with a custom texture, though.
And then I tried to launch a ship with a lot of Kerbals strapped onto it, but it was so many that it made the game freeze and play at a slow slideshow type of framerate.

Long story short, I learned how to create planets.
Which is epic.

[Krazy1]

I got a contract to plant a flag on Eve. It doesn't say I need to return the kerbonauts. I'll return them someday, maybe. Landing is hard enough.

Eve lander on the pad, launching when LJP410 is about 750 km west. I usually launch ahead of the target, with a slightly higher AP and PE matching the target so they will meet in 1-3 orbits.

Spoiler

Eve lander about to drop the 3rd stage booster (far end) before docking. 

Also launched and docked the TSTO LKO Bus to exchange tourists with crew returning from Minmus on a training mission. All 3 ships docked with 15 kerbals total.
Why is there an 80% chance of docking at night? Somebody do the math... 

At Minmus they will undock, leave the Eve lander in orbit, LJP410 will land, refuel, launch, redock with the Eve lander, wait a day or two for a good angle to drop from Minmus and slingshot off Kerbin to Eve.

Edited August 4 by Krazy1

[ColdJ]

Today I finished all but the internal on the Mig-31. Shouldn't be long before I can put out the Soviet supplement for My military planes.

Spoiler

 

[NHunter]

The kerbal-ed exploration ship finally arrived at Tribute. Time to see what is left of Kerbin,..

[Gradysadome]

messing around with modded parts, somehow got this fast, and yes, the sun literally is not real. if this was real life bills brain would be splattered on the feed, bob would have his helmet filled with blood, and jeb would just be smiling.

[ColdJ]

Second Supplemental

Soviet

Released.

https://spacedock.info/mod/3684/ColdJ's Military Planes Soviet

Hi. Welcome to the Soviet supplement for ColdJ's Military Planes. An SU-57 Felon, 5th generation multirole fighter. And a Mig-31 Foxhound, much older but still in service today.

My original ColdJ's Military Planes is a dependency for this mod https://spacedock.info/mod/3576/ColdJ's%20Military%20Planes

There are mounting nodes on the wings and in the bomb bay of the SU-57 for the weapons rails found in the original mod. The Mig-31 has all it's weapons mounts built in. These planes have some improvements in their lights and stop lights that I didn't know how to make when the original was made. Enjoy.

 

Edited August 5 by ColdJ

[NHunter]

My landing on Tribute ran into some technical issues with Tribute itself. The surface textures bugged out and turned invisible under certain MSL altitude. They did gain a grayish overlay later on, but it appeared only when I was almost landed, at like 250m or so. And since this is an old segregated install with old versions of mods, I'm too afraid to try upgrading that house of cards lest it breaks down even more, so...

Well, flag planted and science collected. Let's hope that Dynasty will work properly for me - that's where my expedition is heading next.

 

 

[Gargamel]

Overlapping threads have been merged 

[NHunter]

And now it's Dynasty time! I even remembered to time the arrival of mapping satellite and communication relays ahead of the manned craft. Though the kerbals will still have to loiter in orbit for a while while the maps are compiled.

Speaking of kerbals... there they are, arriving at Dynasty after a quick 90-ish days trip from Tribute.

Let's hope there are no visual glitches and the like this time, and the landing works like we all want it to.

[Angelo Kerman]

Today I got multiple Shipbreaker part modules to work together to tear a vessel apart faster than a single one can:

Similarly, multiple Shipwright part modules can work together to build a vessel faster than a single one can.

[NHunter]

And so Dynasty landing commences:

Originally I was going for the big flat crater in lowlands, but it was so white and empty that I had decided to switch the landing site to a (relatively) nearby hilly midlands. Thankfully, the dV budget allowed it.

That said, I did manage to overestimate how effective parachutes would be on Dynasty. Low atmosphere and 2km/s low-orbital velocity should've clued me in that the landing would have to be a powered one. Thankfully, I did notice the craft coming in too fast before it was to late to save it with a suicide burn. But it was close.

Anyway, the standard landing program of collecting science, planting a flag and doing some selfies with it was done.  And then it was the time to head back to the mothership:

The next stop will be Janus and its moons.

[Qwotty]

Today was the day that CKAN finally got a try. It is quite the game-changer, and how new mods that were not even known about were discovered. What really sold using it was things like that and how it handles all the dependencies for you, which means you can spend less time troubleshooting compatibility issues and more time launching Kerbals into outer space. The first go with it was before sleeping, but that was with RSS, and anybody who has played that knows that it is a sort of type of total conversion type of mod, especially in terms of rocket-building, which was too much information to handle in combination with how different the parts were. After getting rest and remembering CKAN, it was Parallax that was the first to be tested it seemed. Especially considering it would not install correctly before. It worked perfectly using CKAN that time, although I had to turn down the Ambient Light Boost setting slider in the graphics section of the options so that the dark nights would look less bright. It was trippy to see trees and such where they were not before, and with Parallax installed, it had looked more like launching from Earth than before.




It inspired the idea to install things like science parts addons and other useful mods to play basically stock version KSP but pimped out to look more like an actual space agency mission. Graphics overhauling and stock-complementary feature-adding, in essence. That is what got figured out the day that this was written. There shall for sure without doubt be some material to write about from those missions. Care about these posts increased quite a lot after noticing that they get attention, and that people like them (post liking pun intended), and knowing now that it is possible to modify KSP using CKAN with such ease to make it look so pretty, it given lots of inspirations when it comes to playing Kerbal Space Program. Something about refurbishing the game really had restored the love for it.  Especially knowing that the other people on the forums tend to give a Kerb about the posts, like on this thread!!!! 





The mission for my Sandbox mode Parallax test was to land on the Mun. That part went quite well. The crew was the pilot Fervis, the engineer Katnard, and the scientist Roburry. They used a pyramidal type of rocketship design like Saturn V with the 3.75-meter parts as its launch vehicle staging. By all means standard tried and true stuff.



Getting to Mun was easy enough. Particularly because of how well-memorized the procedures involved for Hohmann transfers have become after doing them in KSP for years. It was like the well-planned trips from Earth to The Moon done by the Apollo astronauts during the late 1960s and early 1970s — a smooth spaceflight. The flight was nominal.





The spaceship had an orbiter design as opposed to a lander design, so obviously it falling over was not too surprising. But it made it to the surface without any bangs or booms. So there is that. Fervis got his head wedged between the two Kerbonauts he went with to the Mun upon descending from the ladder after he had left the capsule. He even started flailing his arms.

It was like:

Quote

"Mission control... we got a problem. Over. [*QUINDAR BEEPING*]"
"Could you clarify that, Kerbonaut Fervis? What is the issue specifically? Over. [*QUINDAR BEEPING*]"
"We got some sorta 'sandwich situation' going on over here. Over. [*QUINDAR BEEPING*]"
"What precisely do you mean by 'sandwich situation'? Over. [*QUINDAR BEEPING*]?
"I am going to let Katnard and Roburry describe that for you. Over. [*QUINDAR BEEPING*]" 

And then Fervis went flying up with his EVA Jetpack. The first time that Fervis tried to fly around, he faceplanted and got owned — an unintentional Kerbal noggin lithobrake. The gravity levels there made soaring around and looking around at all of the added rocks feel quite majestic. Even the unintentional Kerbal noggin lithobrake part. 
 


This photo of Fervis here is the last photo taken before all three crew members perished due to propelling themselves right into the rocks shown to the right of the ship.
It was not able to lift up to radial out even with RCS and SAS assistance, and as a result slammed into the rocks, thus sending the whole poor crew out with a bang.





Look at what was left behind, for Jebediah's sake!!!!! Nothing but the RE-L10 "Poodle" Liquid Fuel Engine that the crew landed with. What a tragic turn of events.
But such is the fate of the poor Kerbals that we send out to test our new mods that we installed using CKAN that die sometimes because of it during all of that loving hype and mod testing. The Astronaut Complex marked them as "Missing In Action", but we all know what happened to them. 

All in all, the day that this was written was a great mod-testing day filled with enthusiasm and love, even when the grass made the framerate slow upon looking at it. CKAN made that day great and not only bestowed even more interest in the game, but also reassurance about plans about using coding knowhow to mod KSP.


 

Edited August 8 by Qwotty

[Lisias]

After almost a year and a half, I gave this game some time just for fun.

I made a little Seaplane that use Hydrofoils to help taking off.

The whole history and the craft for download is on link from the image below:

But, TL;DR: pretty small Hydrofoils can do a huge difference on taking off from water. Flaps also helps a lot, and are important to land on water without losing parts around...

[stephensmat]

I landed on Eve.

It was my most stressful landing ever. They say that working in space is days of boredom, and minutes of pure terror. That was my reaction to this landing.

When I arrived at Eve, even with a gravity assist to slow down, I couldn't save enough Delta-V to come in for a landing. But thankfully, I had packed an aerobrake.

My orbit, with only 5% my fuel left, was along the equator, with an Ap of 50,000km, and a Pe of 100km. So the aerobrake was my only hope. At Pe, my average velocity was 3600km/s. No way I was going to slow that down with parachutes. In fact, that was how I lost my last Eve lander, trying to get there in one deceleration.

Instead, I pulsed my jets Retrograde, and ducked my PE to 98km. I didn't dare use any more fuel, and I just had to cross my fingers. The AP dropped when my aerobrake kissed the atmosphere. Not by much. Just a few km. But it was proof of concept. I was so shallow in Eve's upper atmo that it didn't drag my 'Base' out of orientation.

The stressful part was: I couldn't quicksave. I had no options left. Several other missions were going on during/after my last course correction. I didn't want to go back and try again. I either land this thing or lose four Kerbals.

I counted. It took more than 35 orbits to bring my Ap down, slice by slice, until finally, I was *flying* instead of orbiting, with all the control of a large brick.

The Final Orbit: My AP drops below 100km, and then it all starts speeding up. I had no chance to pick my landing zone. I was over ocean most of the time. I was using up my monoprop to stay in retrograde, and I didn't have much of that left either.

But then, praise to our patron saint Wile E. Coyote, the fireball fades and I'm through the 'entry blackout'. I pull my chutes, just as 'Kerbal Engineer' tells me I'm drifting of the 'Peaks'. The high mountains.

This has happened to me before, and it ends with me touching down on the side of a hill, and thus go tumbling, unendingly, until my base is broken into pieces.

But there's nothing else for it. I can't abort. Seven minutes of terror start now. Eject the Aerobrake as soon as the chutes spread open. Farewell, and we thank you.

And as I approach the surface, and the atmosphere gets thicker and denser around me, I realize that I have sent Four of my crew on a one way journey into the pit of Green, Kerbal Hell.

But amazingly, the one piece of good luck, ever? I land on a flat spot. I have no idea how that happened, but i drifted down to a perfect landing spot. I used the last of my fuel to slow my drop, going max power for a few seconds, at an altitude of about 40m.

My landing legs were enough. The surface was tilted just enough that I was sliding at a speed of 0.1m/s. So I drop the landing legs, and let the Base sit on her jets. Stable. Still. Landed.

My hands are shaking. I actually pulled it off, down in one piece.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Started taking screenshots for a new story board / playweekend.

Hopefully will have a little more free time to write some of the narrative this weakend.

The sacred histories tell of Kerbals conquering the stars. Harvesting resources from distant worlds, giant eyes build in the sky capable of viewing the minerals beneath kerbins soil.

Decided to go with post Apocalyptic theme. 

A mishap of some type initiates am extinction event that sends the Kerbals underground.

Kizzy Kerbopolis is has emerged from a hidden bunker after 250 years of isolation near the desert airfield.

After exploring the immediate area, Kizzy reported back. As my playthrough starts members of the communitys FEFs (First Expeditionary Force) have refurbished enough of the desert airfield to start fielding local science missions.

With recent events I have begun to lose interest in KSP1. Reading some of other people's fan fic has rekindled the flame.

TL/DR

Started compiling material for fan fiction posts I've been wanting to write... Coming Soon "Kerbal Awakenings"

[woeller]

I did different kind of spacewalk.

[Krazy1]

On 8/7/2024 at 9:28 PM, Qwotty said:

Today was the day that CKAN finally got a try. It is quite the game-changer,

Looks like you have Scatterer installed but no clouds. You have the Scatterer default config installed? Or it might be a setting in the Scatterer menu (at space center view).

You could change the skybox. I'm using Texture Replacer with DF skybox: Large Magellanic Cloud. There are many others to try.

Suggest Distant Object Enhancement, Planet Shine, Reentry particle effects renewed too.

On 8/9/2024 at 1:30 AM, stephensmat said:

I counted. It took more than 35 orbits to bring my Ap down

Thirty Five! Like his eyes: 

Few days back, the LKO bus was recovered:

Spoiler

It does tumble about halfway through reentry but it doesn't burn up. I should modify it. 

LJP410C3 refueled on Minmus and redocked with the Eve lander in orbit, then dropped to Kerbin to slingshot to Eve. It will continue to Moho for a tourist contract.

Also sent small sat to Eve that will orbit Gilly for a contract. 

Spoiler

Meanwhile on Moho, another LJP410 lander hopped over to scope out a part to be recovered. This won't be easy.  It's on a 27 deg sloped wall of a huge crater. It's a 2.3 ton turbofan! What. I can just hear the sadistic dev laughing bwahahaha

Edited August 10 by Krazy1

[ColdJ]

Started building some utility vehicles.