What did you do in KSP1 today?

[woeller]

Putting the new solar panel into operation.

[Qwotty]

The day this was written marked the day that Miski Kerman was launched into orbit to test the launch vehicle design shown in the nifty animated slideshow image that was created instead of a series of larger pictures to scroll down vertically to eye and read about. The space mission was nominal aside from the wobbling between the first and second stage due the decouplers and as well as due to struts not being unlocked yet. The science point yield was nothing much to write home about, but it was worth the trip and showed that the first launch vehicle stage built passed the test, meaning that it had been proven in the field that the design was viable. "Super Screenshots" were snapshotted for the first time during that mission too, which are attached below the animated slideshow image. 




Very large and high-quality indeed — as they should be. More photos like these shall be used in these posts in future henceforth for sure.
It seems that because of this thread that things like the function keys that hide the HUD and take screenshots have become muscle memory.
It only makes sense knowing now like it was not before that each Kerbal Space Program may or may not be an epic moment worthy of sharing.

Anyway... while your attention is here...

Following learning how to create mods for Kerbal Space Program, it seems that lately that is where the focus has been going, moreso than playing the game proper. But obviously that is where the love this game came from in the first place. Yet it seems like, knowing that it is easier than previously thought to make custom items like pods, rocket engines, and radially attached parts — especially those with their own unique features and resources — and that 3D asset generation for things precisely like KSP modding for CKAN have been streamlined by advancements in technology, it has made the want to create addons and see them in action on the forums grow into more of a mission than the Kerbal space missions.
At least as of writing this. And that is stellar, because with all of that hard learning, through it, the ability and thus power to be useful when it comes to creation custom content for Kerbal Space Program will grow.

"Get ready to test out my custom part at the launchpad, Bill, Bob, Jeb, and Valentina... " over time became the vibe as opposed to something more like "Get ready to fly to the Mun using stock parts for like the 234^th time, Bill, Bob, Jeb, and Valentina... ". 

It is not like there will be posting here less awhile necessarily though, as showcasing mod testing with pictures and words (and perhaps even animated images or videos) that were indeed tested by playing Kerbal Space Program is an indeed answer to "What did you do in KSP1 today?" and type of content to post furthermore moreover. The want to create assets for games in the form of addons was there, but before it was a question of "What game?", and it is pretty flippin' darn obvious what the answer to that question is now. 

We here at Qwotty KSP Modding & Other Supervillainy Industries^TM love Kerbal Space Program as much as you readers here do, but we are sure that you, like us, are well aware of how it is the type of game that has a thriving community, and people out there has to contribute to it. So why in the entire Kerbal Space Program universe would it serve all of us any good if this modding skill potential was wasted on idly flying Kerbals around in planes made in the SPH or something like that for the umpteenth time? The plan is to craft everything from command modules to rocket engines. The goal? To boldly launch where no Kerbal has launched before, and certainly not to scatter more Kerbals across the landscape near the Kerbal Space Center because we've run out of things to do. No, we're in the business of reaching for the stars, not digging craters out of sheer ennui!

It could be said that what was done in Kerbal Space Program the day this was written was a standard launch and then Kerbal Space Program modding stuff.  It makes sense how, us specifically, the posters, thus the modders, being a man and woman who love Kerbal Space Program together, would eventually go from shyly posting our Kerbal Space Program adventures without disclosing any darn thing about who is posting it to writing gloriously long brutally honest posts about how we are going to try to team up to create the best mods possible that we can, to give back something to the Kerbal Space Program modding community, as a way of saying thanks to them. And normally talking about ourselves like this is something we would consider against the forum rules about off-topic posting, but in this case, we think that this is actually about as on-topic as it can get, in a sweet type of way. After all, the question asked on this thread that all of us here who post answer is "What did you do in KSP1 today?", and all of what is written here is the answer to that, which is that we decided the night that this was written that tonight was the night that "Operation Modification" would commence. 

Long story short, playing KSP "out-of-the-box" type of way, even with CKAN, how non-modders do, grew to be too dull for us two. 
We decided that it was time that day to put playing Kerbal Space Program proper (as in regularly) to the side and to go modder mode.
So therefore thusly, in a way, aside from the rocket launch with Miski Kerman, we also came out of our metaphorical closet of clandestine filled with Kerbal Snacks to bring all of you the positive tidings. I am sure that our type of writing would and will fit right into part descriptions. The writing style of those that was written by the game developers is distinctive, you know? Quite the fun style to channel. 

And the truly truest kicker of the kickers is that, because Kerbal Space Program is either basically or literally our favorite game, that means there is no better game to be modding than KSP for CKAN. If you are interested, then by all means keep your eyes peeled, because following this being posted, the effort is going to start being put in. Big modding moves in terms of determination and planning is what we did in Kerbal Space Program that day. 


Somewhat unrelated, but here are some replies:

Like this reply here in response to @Krazy1:

20 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

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.

Thank you kindly honestly for the advice and suggestions, but that was because I was using what was installed as a test. Seeing if mods like that worked is what the focus was, not the type of stuff that you are talking about. Although now it is, so it all works out. Distant Object Enhancement and Planetshine were already known about, but Reentry Particle Effects Renewed was not before writing this, so thank you for that. That being said though, such questions and answer are best reserved for private messages instead of on threads, especially like these where the focus is on sharing our stories rather than discussion on modding Kerbal Space Program. Then again posting mods and such is a specialty, so lucky for you, you basically happened to start talking mods to Mister and Missus KSP Modder, in essence. It was like: "Wow, they care that much about helping out with mods? How sweet. This just makes us want to create our own mods even more!!". 

And this shoutout to @woeller:

13 hours ago, woeller said:

Putting the new solar panel into operation.

We had to end of the writing-writing of this post here by replying to this post here, even though we knew that was optional, because the picture posted was literally just that cool. It was as if liking the post was not enough. So cool in fact that for some reason the bracket keys on the keyboard that this was typed with that had not been working right for months (which we just realized suddenly started working again after looking that picture. Unrelated coincidence? We think not!! It was obviously because of the cool Kerbal Space Program screenshot. Anybody who knows anything about Kerbals knows that they can fix your brackets keys on your keyboards by staring at epic screenshots of them. The real question though is if looking at pictures of Kerbal Space Program Krakens will make them stop working again... 

Anywho...
Qwotty out, over.
[*QUINDAR BEEPING*]
 

[Kimera Industries]

I started building a space-shuttle inspired launch system. It has a large main tank that carries a Mk 2 spaceplane on its side. The main tank carries it into orbit (once it reaches high altitudes the Terriers on the spaceplane kick in) and the main tank deorbits and lands on the runway. The spaceplane does whatever it needs to and then does the same. I want to implement for the first time a system that can physically refuel and place the tank and the spaceplanes together. I think it'll be a cool challenge.

[Meecrob]

I've got more coming. A challenge combo starhipsuperheavy to duna!

Also guys and gals and everyone else. I've only got 6 subscribers. If you feel my content is worthy of a subscription, I would truly appreciate it!

 

Edit: thanks @Kimera Industries

Edited August 12 by Meecrob

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

I was looking around my saves, and found this neat SSTO I kinda.. just left in high Jool orbit for a while... So I decided to return it to Kerbin

however, upon doing the burn, I realized it had nowhere near enough fuel to capture around Kerbin. Even with a better optimized transfer when I left at the proper transfer window.

So I went to Duna instead.

it flew fairly ok in Duna's atmosphere

and then when I was coming in for landing, I realized that this SSTO was not optimized for Duna in the slightest, and proceeded to bounce and crash at 80m/s

so I quickloaded and used the small amount of fuel I had left to land on Ike instead

I then refueled it and I will bring it the rest of the way back to Kerbin

[Bobbejans]

this was not to day but a few days ago i built this station containing 500T of fuel for interplanetary missions 

[Krazy1]

Last few days... 

I was time-warping and something crashed. Thought it was a bug but found it was a probe in high polar Ike orbit with a slowly decaying orbit, due to Duna's gravity (using Principia). Reloaded and pulled it down to a lower equatorial orbit to stabilize. 

Spoiler

I built a pretty cool rover for a contract to send it to Mun.  Quite compact for 17 crew capacity.  I had to renegotiate the contract though... I forgot it needed 6000 LF and had nowhere near that much, so we (myself and I?) agreed to do it for 1/2 price. I was able to keep the top 2 drop tanks attached, so I could refuel and hop around or go to orbit 1-way. The landing took 3 tries... the TWR was 1.0 in LMO, so I had to drop the bottom tank early in the landing and burn about 5 minutes.

Spoiler

[Kellanium]

TIKSP I...built a 1960s re-imagining of the Ares I-X. And it actually worked very well which made me furious.

Ended up circularizing with the CSM burning like, 200m/s? It worked really well, which is kinda funny, because i was making fun of the Ares I-X to my friend when i made it.

[Kimera Industries]

13 hours ago, Kellanium said:

And it actually worked very well which made me furious.

I tried making one too, and it is indeed surprising just how well it works! Of course, KSP is far more forgiving than real life...

[JeDoesStuff]

Working on a new world record for lightest mass mission to Eeloo

With the discovery of magic ladder, far less electric charge is required to land on Eeloo with an Ion engine. This is as far as I've guaranteed mass savings, but as i continue to test I should be able to significantly lower the record, especially since magic ladder can be used all throughout the mission to make small reductions in the xenon I need to use. I am hopeful that with enough work O can get the mass under 1.6 tons

[Qwotty]

After this string of space missions had gone haywire in Science mode, we were finally able to score well-deserved science points. 
Kerbals had to die along the way to get there, but we bet that you can probably read this and go "I can relate to that." about it. 

If the code for getting Blender to recognize the .mu files that Kerbal Space Program uses for the video game (which can be found here) were to have not bugged out how it did, we would have posted part mods by now, but for whatever reason, it seems to throw out errors multiple times, even with different versions of Blender or whatnot, as well as put out .mu files that show up in the Vehicle Assembly Building as being invisible, even though they were given the skin and respective reference to them in the .cfg file code. Otherwise with that notwithstanding there would be parts to download. Planetary and star system mods are not out of the picture for now as of writing this, as those do not require .mu files, but until the Blender to Kerbal Space Program process gets figured out correctly, that seems to be about the most that can be done, aside from mods that add some functions that enhance gameplay, but do not come with any .mu models. 

Until the fix that resolves the issue abovedescribed is found, it seems that space missions like the probe landing pictured above that happened on the day that this written along with learning how to code new things into Kerbal Space Program and creating custom celestial bodies for more gameplay. Designing craft and then testing them out in the field never seems to get old luckily though, so at least this twice multiplied modding sadness at least has some sweet silver linings to it. 

Upset about the Blender Kerbal Space Program plugin stuff we have indeed gotten, but the upside is that it is the only thing holding us back from publishing new parts to play with that shall be available for download after this stuff is all figured out. Us two will be over here playing Kerbal Space Program like we usually do, as well as working on still faithfully trying to create Kerbal Space Program parts that add new and novel functionalities to the game. 

 

 

[woeller]

A special delivery in LKO and keostationary satellite maintenance. (JNSQ/Kerbalism)

Edited August 16 by woeller

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

I conducted an off-road landing test of my electric flying laboratory, the E-41 Edison. This design was supposed to be an all-electric version of my gas-powered propeller-driven Fliegendlabor. If it worked, then it would be sent to Laythe.

 

Here are some pictures from yesterday's circumnavigation test.

Spoiler

• The E-41 Edison turning to fly at a heading of 270 degrees for a circumnavigation test.
• I took off around midday for maximum solar power intake mid-flight.

 

• As the E-41 was flying over Alt Test Mountains, which are 50 km west of the Kerbal Space Center, it was setting at a good cruise setting.
• The laboratory was running and yet the batteries were full, which means that it can conduct science DURING flight on Kerbin. 
  • Or at least it should, if it passes the off-road landing tests.
• It was way past time for me to go to bed, so I made sure the autopilot was set and left the game running while I slept.

 

 

When I woke up, I was a few hundred kilometers away from the KSC. I made breakfast, shaved, cleaned up, and nearly went to work late for this.

 

• Approaching the KSC. 

 

This flying laboratory's cruise performance stats were as follows:

• Altitude: 7.5 km (~24.6k ft; Class Alpha airspace)
  • Instructions to ascend to that altitude are as follows:
    • Point the aircraft at the desired heading after taking off.
    • Maintain the aircraft’s vertical speed between 30 and 40 m/s until you reach 6 km altitude.
    • Immediately afterwards, ascend at a vertical speed of between 15 and 25 m/s until you reach 7.5 km altitude.
• Velocity: 160 m/s (~358 mph)
  • A good average for the flight.
• Blade Deployment Angle: 40 degrees
  • 45 degrees is optimal
• Recommended Throttle: 66%

 

• One in-game day later, and the E-41's circumnavigation flight is complete.
  • And the lab was running the entire time it was cruising. How's that for energy efficiency.
    • I cannot promise that on Laythe, though.
• I quickly saved my progress and shut off my computer before driving to work.

 

 

After I got back home - and ran, showered, then ate dinner - I launched the E-41 for off-road landing tests. It was the final and most important test for this aircraft, since it would be doing that a lot on Laythe. I thought I might pay a visit to the Temple of Tut-Un Jeb-Ahn, since I've been there before when testing the E-40 Impulse last year IRL.

 

Unfortunately, that turned out to be a total disaster.

• Some of the propeller blades snapped off after hitting the ground.
• After I reverted to quicksave, the front landing gear would not deploy. I thought that the I-beam attached to the front battery already took care of that.
  • For some reason, it didn't have any problems BEFORE reverting to quicksave. 
• I tried something crazy like the blooper from my C-119 Flying Boxcar tests, but each time resulted in catastrophic failure.
  • More specifically, I tried landing on the two wheels alone and slowing down while keeping my nose off the ground for a bit. It would have to touch eventually, but at least the capsule inside the cockpit fairing would be safe.
• Eventually, I decided "Screw this," and just let it crash.

 

Since the wings' original design were ripped from my VC-54 replica, I compared how low the engine landing gear was on both aircraft. Apart from me catching different front landing gear (which doesn't really matter if propeller blades keep snapping off), I noticed that VC-54's blades were higher off the ground than the E-41's. 

 

Prop Height Comparison

VC-54	E-41

 

I don't know how I'm going to salvage this plane wreck (pun intended). If you got any ideas, I'm open.

 

On a related note, if I am to continue with the electric flying laboratory idea for Laythe, I'll need to try something a little more unconventional. Until I do:

[miklkit]

Just test driving a new buggy today.

[Krazy1]

A few days ago I built an improved LKO Bus with only drop tanks for JNSQ. A 1.5 stage to orbit if you will. 

I loaded it up with all the idle kerbonauts for accurate weight load... not officially a joyride.

Fuel margin was basically zero. Thankfully, I stuffed a 100 LFO tank in the cargo bay or it wouldn't have been able to deorbit. 

It worked pretty well though. After flight, I bound a key to disable the Vectors thrust vectoring... SAS went unstable when the air thinned out. Also stretched the drop tanks a bit. 

Spoiler

[RedAl1en1]

I found something absurd, idk how to show it but i found three asteroids inside of each other near niedon.

[PT]

Got bored, started KSP, dealt with old mods tanking performance with exceptions, finally got working set of cool parts, then yet again I launched the fleet.

After first few annoying suboribtal flights first cruiser, Astarte, was commissioned to bring some refined science from Kerbin moons.

While it was bouncing around some probes were launched to various planets for survey contracts. Advance payments was then reinvested into passenger cruiser, VoidBus I.

From which profits were then reinvested into upgraded science cruiser, Astarte II, featuring newly acquired nuclear torch technology.

While bouncing between Kerbin moons some it acquired some slave labor rescued some unlucky kerbonauts which were used to fix some faulty satellites

And now its parked in Minmus orbit after rescuing yet another kerbonaut, and released yet another relay satelite.

Final piece of cargo is still waiting for ship to reach contract orbit.
After stockpiling more data for onboard laboratory it will return to LKO where lander pods will be dropped back to surface with acquired free labor rescued crew members. It will then be refueled, restocked with cargo, and launched for interplanetary cruise to churn through stockpiled data on the way to target.

Edited August 20 by PT

[Mr. Kerbin]

So, I was messing with HyperEdit, and because I want to make a shepard moon, I use Minmus as the example. Then I realized something-

bruh minmus is tiny.

I mean, you kinda know this, but in KSP the planets aren’t at all close, so you'd never see how small it is.

Spoiler

okay maybe the planet I made is too big.

 

Edited August 21 by Mr. Kerbin

[Steigleder]

Hi, has anyone calculated, how many mods KSP supports without crashing it? 

I have a project in RSS/RO, which is to build all the manned ships in history, from the beginning until today (and near future), and to do that, I will have to install all the RO mods, Tantares, Habtech2, Chinese Pack, Dondi's Space Shuttle, ISRO mods, Tundra, Raidernick soviet mod, Artemis, etc, and I don't know if there is a limit.

My PC has 64 Gb RAM...

Thank you!
 

Edited August 21 by Steigleder

[Tecorian]

Well, not calculated, but installed:

144 mods (no RSS/RO !) with about 94500 patches (or how they called it in the loading screen?)

System:

Ryzen 7 7800x3D, 96 GB DDR 5 Ram 6000, CL30-36-36-76, XFX RX 6900 XT, 16 GiB

But, this is on the edge, sometimes i get lags, especially, when several big spaceships are in orbit of the same planet

 

[ColdJ]

1 hour ago, Tecorian said:

96 GB DDR 5 Ram 6000

I think you might need more ram.

 

[Tecorian]

4 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

I think you might need more ram.

 

Yeah, but i did a mistake prior discovering KSP1 and build a nice little pc with a little microATX board with only two Ram-slots

So, i have no space for more and on top my wife says there is no more money for more Ram  - and we all know, wifes are always right, or?

 

[PT]

Continuing from last time...

I suffered from having so much science I could not transfer it due to limited electricity on both old and new Astarte science cruisers.
However refueling stations for LKO, Mun, and Minmus, were specced to weird contract requirement and turned out to be great auxiliary electric generators.
Refueling will however have to wait for next session, as I forgot to add mod for easy fuel transfer. I ain't got no time to do it manually.

Astarte I is currently half-mothballed at LKO fuelt depo, and another depo is decelerating toward Minmus for contract completion. In meantime Astarte II is collecting those annoying sandstones, and snatching some indentured workers.

Now I need to get it back to LKO to drop landers back to Kerbin, dump the science with assistance of fuel depo batteries, refuel, restock with cargo, then depart to whatever planet will have nearest transfer window.
On the way back there's that last satellite to deploy, and some Kerbonauts to snatch. In meantime small issue was discovered with drop pods, it appears someone forgot to put on 'chutes so some orbital maintenance will need to be performed.

[CollectingSP]

Daily roundup- 8/21

• Worked on my version of NASA's X-38 ACRV prototype, which will eventually fly to my ISS Replica.  I took heavy inspiration from User @Kuiper_Belt's X-38 in "Shuttle Adventures," So it looks very, very similar to his. It's got a lot of work left to be done (Mainly the DPS,) but the main vehicle looks great!
• Worked a tad on my upcoming DSCS mission, which will launch at some point this weekend or early next week on a Delta IV Medium (4,0.)

Here's some WIP images!

X-38 Assured Crew Return Vehicle V-201 (WIP)

 

 

 

Edited August 22 by CollectingSP

[PT]

Continuing from last time...

In order to extract more kash from civilian sector I docked two autonomous VTOL munar landers to old low-tech passenger cruiser rusting in LKO, and left them in low orbits for reuse on next trips.

On the way one more waste of oxygen Engineer was picked up to join gaggle of screaming tourists.

Of course the moment ship left back for Kerbin a "plant flag on Mun" contract appeared, but its not the last trip so sooner or later it will be completed.
Now I need to do some refueling, drop passengers and slave labor rescues, figure out how to rescue Kerbal stuck in a cabin with no hatch, and finally launch something Kerbed out of Kerbin SOI.