What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Tormy45]

21 hours ago, Eclipse 32 said:

what mod for the engines and radiators on the mothership?

The Two engines are the X-2 Heinlein Nuclear Saltwater Engines from Nertea's Far Future Technology. I'm not 100% on the radiators but i'm guessing they came from Nertea's Heat Control mod. I'm pretty happy with my current mothership, its has about 31,000m/s of Delta V, about an hour of burn time. More than enough to visit Jool and all its moons. For my next generation mothership I'll be using the big brother to the Heinleins. Its gonna be a monster of a ship, lol.

Edited December 9 by Tormy45
misspelled something

[stephensmat]

So. Today's achievement was getting two mods working properly. 'MoarKerbals' and 'GlobalConstruction'.

Check out my Minmus Base.

The large tankers with IRSU mounted on the side are from an older save, where I routinely used Minmus as a 'Fuel Depot'. The centre lander is retrofit for Material Kits. That was meant to be for later, but I discovered that production was stupidly improved by connecting the landers to the Base, and sharing resources between them. Off-screen t the right is a second digger, providing liquid fuel, monoprop, and ore, for a second setup, where I 'produce' new Kerbals and educate them.

Minmus has the lowest gravity in the 'local' neighbourhood, so getting things into space becomes so much easier. What would have cost over a million in boosters and construction was done free of charge from local production.

So, to that end... Behold:

Took half a dozen launches, but this is my new Shipyard. The Workshop and Assembly Line are fed huge amounts of Material Kits from Minmus, the Landers at the end bring up the crews, and I feed all my transport craft into the Recycler, to keep the huge fuel tank topped up for completed craft. From here, I plan to build my Jool Fleet.

The majority of Mods I'm using are Neatea's 'Future' series. I've already sent Probes to Jool and found antimatter bands. Once I unlock the Antimatter engines,  the craft will be built here at Minmus. To be honest, I've never built anything like that before, but I figure whatever I do, I'll need a 'factory floor'.

[Eclipse 32]

On 12/9/2024 at 3:41 PM, Tormy45 said:

The Two engines are the X-2 Heinlein Nuclear Saltwater Engines from Nertea's Far Future Technology. I'm not 100% on the radiators but i'm guessing they came from Nertea's Heat Control mod. I'm pretty happy with my current mothership, its has about 31,000m/s of Delta V, about an hour of burn time. More than enough to visit Jool and all its moons. For my next generation mothership I'll be using the big brother to the Heinleins. Its gonna be a monster of a ship, lol.

ah, ok! i have FFT, but i didn't recognize the small NSWR engine. and yeah, the "Niven" engines are just a beast. i got more than halfway to Dres without bothering with a transfer window and used less than a tenth of a percent of my fuel before i gave up because LAGG. and i was pushing a miner!

Edited December 11 by Eclipse 32

[Scarecrow71]

Continuing on with my current career, I am working on the Gemini program.  This program, as I mentioned above, is to send probes and satellites and manned missions to Minmus, and is so-named because Minmus is the twin moon.  So I put a satellite, Gemini II, in a polar orbit of Minmus.  Why polar?  To help alleviate a lot of the problems with control when on the far side of the moon.  It's in a polar orbit so that it should be facing towards Kerbin most (if not all) of the time.  I know that Minmus' own orbit around Kerbin is going to skew that in the long run, but for now it will do.

After this, I sent up a manned mission, Gemini III, landing in the Great Flats.  Got multiple contracts to land and return, as well as return from orbit.  Got the 2 sweet ones, too:  collect and return science from the surface, and bring back a Green Sandstone.  Easy as pie.  To commemorate the event, here is a shot of Bob as he looks back towards Kerbin and the Mun from Minmus, contemplating his very small existence in the grand scheme of things.

[TheKspEngineer]

Today I launched Ales to Minmus.

Here the second stage of the Aphrodite-1B separates and coasts for circulation.

It is now performing a Trans-Minmus injection.

Ales has landed! ( The solar panels on the skycrane are different, because I had to relaunch, because with the stationary solar panels the batterys ran out)

Space wheelie!

The first finding of Ales.

 

Edited December 11 by TheKspEngineer
Finally the images insert without 502s

[Eclipse 32]

i settled on a standardized crew orbiter with deorbit ability.

[Eclipse 32]

i want someone to yeet a kerbal into the sun with hacked decouplers only

[Eclipse 32]

i orbited the mun, getting my biggest load of science so far, and got Jeb stuck in orbit along with all the science. Pe of 740KM or so. and i don't have the claws unlocked. guess it's about time i tried the get out and push method.

[purpleivan]

Someone asked if it was possible to still land on the control tower on Runway Island in v1.25.5, after I posted some (pretty ancient) pics of a flight just such a landing, in the Creepiest Lonliest KSP Moment thread.

So I decided to take a flight there today, with similar, far from a perfect landing, results.

Got the thing snagged between the antenna and had to use the F12 menu to free it, before "landing" it on the roof of the tower.

[Eclipse 32]

i want to see a sandcrawler on Duna with some of the giant regolith harvesters from FFT. i was watching star wars, in case you can't tell.

[Lisias]

_ "Master Jebediah", humbly asked Lodun Kerman, "What's best in life?"

_ "To troll your tourists,"", boldly answered Jebediah, "see them scared before you, and to hear the lamentations of the maintenance staff trying to cleaning their seats".

And Lodun reached enlightenment.

And, in time:

On 12/7/2024 at 2:11 AM, Lisias said:

I'm trying a polar Trans-Münar Injection and, boy, it's hard...

I did it!! I will build a kind of tutorial this week!

[Eclipse 32]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

_ "Master Jebediah", humbly asked Lodun Kerman, "What's best in life?"

_ "To troll your tourists,"", boldly answered Jebediah, "see them scared before you, and to hear the lamentations of the maintenance staff trying to cleaning their seats".

And Lodun reached enlightenment.

HA!

[Eclipse 32]

i wonder if someone made a mod to make planets movable(like with giant engines)

[AMA PR0]

Edited December 12 by AMA PR0

[Lisias]

46 minutes ago, Eclipse 32 said:

i wonder if someone made a mod to make planets movable(like with giant engines)

  You mean something like this?

Spoiler

 

Definitively not possible using the Stock Solar System (neither Kopernicus, that uses it). Perhaps someone could coerce Principia on doing it by hot-updating the kinect and potential energy of the planet on key points of the current orbit.
I doubt it would be possible using the PartModule/VesselModule  -  the numbers involved would be huge, way beyound what they are designed to handle: I expect lots of NaN fun from them if someone tries them. Not to mention that they don't simulate local gravity.

Edited December 12 by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon

[Eclipse 32]

it would be quite the challenge! i can't watch YT right now, but i saw a build related to that on kerbalX. so yeah, pretty much

[Duke MelTdoWn]

Based on experience gained from the Air Speed Challenge, I built a SSTO with minimal frontal area.

'Gisl' Light Shuttle
Passenger SSTO
1x Rapier, 1x Nerva
Launch mass: 15.1 tons
Price: 34,232
Delta-V: 2950 m/s left after insertion into 80x80 km Kerbin Orbit
TWR: 0.52 in Low Kerbin Orbit
Crew capacity: 2
Cargo capacity: 650 L + 100 L
Docking: 1x Clamp-O-Tron Jr. port, RCS
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3380933491

The low drag design improves the aerodynamic performance dramatically. Low weight allows for rapid acceleration on the single Rapier.

A Nerva Engine hides under the front cowl. You need to flip the plane around at 45 km altitude.

I built the 'Gladr' derivate to land on the Mun. 

The Spark landing engines did not perform as expected. Therefore landing was performed on Nerva. 

VTOL on Spark worked after correcting thrust levels. I found that I needed to decrease thrust in the front Spark to 50%. 

3 more Kerbonauts stranded in Mun orbit! 
'Gladr' has insufficient delta-v to return from Mun orbit to Kerbin, so I will not post the craft file at this time.

Edited Friday at 02:53 PM by Duke MelTdoWn

[Duke MelTdoWn]

Oh and I remembered how to embed images!

Here are some of a Gargantua Freighter bringing 180 tons of ore to the Refinery in LKO.

 

Gargantua Mining System

Mining Rover + 2x Ore Freighter + A/D Stage + Refinery Station
Ore capacity: 18,000 per Freighter
Payload Mass (launch confguration): 238 tons
Total launch mass incl. ExHeReLau launcher: 1779 tons
Total price: 988,233

 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3380142778

Edited Friday at 03:29 PM by Duke MelTdoWn

[Eclipse 32]

@Vanamonde, could you shut down the topic linked in my sig? it's kinda been abandoned.

thanks @James Kerman!

[James Kerman]

2 minutes ago, Eclipse 32 said:

@Vanamonde, could you shut down the topic linked in my sig? it's kinda been abandoned.

Thread locked at OP's request.

[Eclipse 32]

nothing today, but yesterday i started prototyping my interplanetary cruiser. got the main hab module and the lab module on before i had to be done.

Edited Friday at 06:36 PM by Eclipse 32

[Qwotty]

Okay, so, today, I decided to take a leap like a leapfrog playing on a LeapFrog® and make a post after not doing it for a while. Not only to share my breakthroughs and/or whatnot, but also to step out of my little Kerbal-themed bubble and ask for something I’ve been thinking about for a while: friends. Kerbal Space Friends, to be specific. I realized it would be even more fun to share the experience with others — even if it's just geeking out together. It felt a little nerve-wracking at first, but then I realized that I had already been putting myself out there. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find some kindred spirits who are just as obsessed with weird Kerbal projects as I am. And you're supposed to share common interest with your friends, or else it will be boring, right? Well, lookie here at me here. It checks out. If you are interested, I can be reached here.  If not, continue reading and ignore that part.
Why wouldn't you want to be attempting some multiplayer madness with me to see who can crash land the best the most or something like that, though?! Hahaha. 
My joke is that "if I don't start seeing some friend requests soon, I am going to start chucking Kerbals into high Kerbin orbit until I do". 
 

The day before writing this, I was hard at work trying to make something that I could post to impress y'all with my biplane building skills.
As you can see, I was indeed able to get my 1903 Flyer/Flyer I/Kitty Hawk/Wright Flyer on, but, come landing time, things would get... erm... "explosive". 

Ever since I've started to take messing around with Firespitter more seriously, I've been having fun using it to immerse myself in the world of old-school plane-building utilizing Kerbal Space Program.
The result? Beautiful chaos.

Enough about biplanes, though: this is not what this post is about. Nor triplanes either. Not even quadplanes. 

Nay. Rather? Floating balloon vehicles. 

As you can see, my first attempt at a floating ship went half-to-plan.
Yes, it was able to take off.  But, no, it was not able to take off safely.

Then, I tried the same design again, but with more balloons.

Better, yeah, but the clipping was not what I was looking for.
Or able to tolerate in terms of eyesores.
Therefore, I had to change something.

And that I did.
I resized two of the inner balloons, as well as the center one.

And with that, it was now more like "Squadala! We are off!".
I even felt the need to go FreeIVA my way over to the floor hatch window to look down at the water high above Jeb with a sense of triumph.

As evidenced by the GIF, I even walked around in FreeIVA as Jeb handing out smooches to crewmates like snacks. 
Totally normal, right?
Just your standard, everyday Kerbal behavior.

Okay, maybe not.

It is indeed one of my favorite unintentional finds in Kerbal Space Program 1 thus far.
Jeb pressing W to lean in and "kiss" a fellow Kerbal strapped to an exposed seat mid-flight is peak KSP nonsense. 
You may call it silly or insanely strange, but I call it discovering the secret Kerbal-kissing easter egg feature that the devs probably never intended.

What was I doing in Kerbal Space Program 1 the day that was written? Sending valuable seconds of mission time walking Jeb around the cabin like a space gremlin just so he can do that. 

The sheer audacity and absurdity of it all is what gets me. This game is supposed to be about science, not doing whatever Jeb was doing there.
And the best part? Because of how the video game, works the Kerbals don’t even react. They just sit there, looking unphased by Jeb's smoochy shenanigans. 
It's when you first figure these silly little things out that the ridiculousness hits like an RCS thruster firing at full blast the most, but oh my word — I still find this funny to me now.
I am glad I was feeling silly enough to think of that, because the whole thing was so absurdly funny and funnily absurd that it felt like my sides were able to achieve escape velocity and start orbiting Kerbin.
It started innocently enough. Just experimenting, thinking, “Okay, let me see how it looks when I move Jeb over here for some immersion.” until I felt like I couldn't help but start doing it to something like every Kerbal in Jeb's line of sight for the meme. It gets even funnier when you realize the context. Jeb's supposed to be this main pilot veteran type — but he's getting up out of his seat to go do that to the other Kerbals in the Mk3 Passenger Module? Pure comedy gold.

As far as the balloon ship itself that Jeb was in doing all of that goes, I'm quite proud of how that experiment turned out.
It was a successful proof-of-concept test run to see if I could create an airship that could stay airborne without having to rely on fuel.
Thanks to the combination of a J-N160 'Fireflash' Air-Breathing Nuclear Engine with KerBalloon technology, it was indeed possible.
Flying in the air? Like that? Without liquid fuel? Sign me up promptly!!!!

The takeaway about this day? The day this was written?? It was more than just a chaotic flying lovefest; it was also, ultimately speaking anyway, a total success.
I mean, who needs the constant anxiety of watching your fuel reserves tick down when you can just float majestically over Kerbin like the airborne royalty you were always meant to be?
This airship felt like a glimpse into a new realm of possibilities. Imagine the potential! Long-range exploration missions, high-altitude research, Kerbal tourism, or just floating around, enjoying the view of Kerbin without the constant risk of running out of propellant.

But, of course, no successful flight is typically complete without some mid-air shenanigans usually, like you saw.
Being a fan of closed-loop design type of vehicles, the successful test of this felt like quite the win that way.
Think about it: with this type of design, you can hover indefinitely at high altitudes to gather atmospheric data, like monitoring weather patterns, and do things like observe the surface below without ever needing to land or refuel.

Oh, and let’s not forget how visually absurd this thing looks. It’s part airship, part spaceship, part nuclear-powered monstrosity, and all of it is floating in the air like it’s no big deal. You’d think this was some niche prototype for high-altitude experiments, but no — this is my new type of mode of transportation.

Forget rockets. Forget planes, even. I’m flying around Kerbin on a nuclear-powered balloon vehicle thing like some kind of overpowered dirigible captain now, and it’s glorious.
The absolute madness of combining balloons with nuclear propulsion, eh??

In conclusion: this airship is pure, unfiltered genius wrapped in a thick layer of Kerbal insanity not too unheard off for the type of zany builds you see players create sometimes every now and then.
"Those biplanes I showed you earlier ain't got nothing on this", I say partly sarcastically. That's like comparing a paper plane to an awesome alien super heavy-lift launch vehicle.


It’s novel, it’s efficient, it’s absurdly practical, and it makes every other craft I’ve built look like it was training to get me to this type of spot.
If this isn’t a pinnacle of Kerbal engineering, I don’t know what is. 

Balloons, you know? These bad boys are just like, “Up? Sure, we can do that. Forever? Yeah, we got you.", and I think that is quite lovely. Flying this thing feels like an absolute power move. Rockets are stressful—you’re constantly worried about trajectory, fuel, staging, and whether your craft is going to spontaneously disassemble. Planes? They’re fine, but you’re always one bad maneuver away from a fiery crash. This airship? It’s just vibes. I’m floating above Kerbin like I’m on an airborne yacht, sipping imaginary tea while looking down at the planet with smug satisfaction. I could stay up there forever. I’m practically untouchable. Gravity doesn’t even know my name anymore.

Fun, right?
I deem this stuff worth a shot.
There is lots of potential there.


To celebrate, I did the absolute madness that was my Red Bull Stratos recreation in Kerbal Space Program.
I didn’t just build a simple balloon setup.
Nope.
I strapped a solid rocket booster to the balloon-ship, because of course I did.
Why?
Because I wanted the most Kerbal Space Program -ish Red Bull Stratos recreation possible — that’s why.

As per usual with S2-33 "Clydesdale" Solid Fuel Boosters, it had started punching through the atmosphere like it had a personal vendetta against Kerbin's gravity keeping it sat on the surface.

The rocket had a large-model Advanced Reaction Wheel Module with a Sarnus-SIV-CGI Instrumentation Unit sat atop of it, so that I could have a way to guide the rocket during ascent.
That being said, you can see how, regardless, during ascent, there was a partial loss of control that resulted in the rocket tipping downwards, but, luckily, I was able to turn that around.
This part I was especially proud of, considering how the rocket tipping downwards temporarily resulted in the projected apoapsis starting to go down, not up, as it should nominally be optimally.

But it was a Red Bull Stratos recreation in Kerbal Space Program, after all, so when it came time for Jebediah Kerman to be like Felix Baumgartner, things fell flat. Quite literally. Into Kerbal-ish faceplanting.
I don't think that anything like that ever happened to Felix when it was jump time, unlike Jeb.

"C'mon! Get up! Walk the proverbial metaphorical plank, Jeb! Just do it already!" 
"I can't... a mysterious force is making it so that I can't move without EVA RCS jetpack thrusters, let alone walk!"

Like... what in the KSP???


As luck would have it, the very same said EVA RCS jetpack thrusters were able to yeet him out after enough flailing around like a fish floundering because it has been taken out of its watery habitat.
He plummeted through the atmosphere like a tiny green meteor as he started spinning wildly towards the ground he was approaching with speedy velocity. 
Jeb even did some spin tricks with the last bit of EVA RCS jetpack fuel that he had left. 



At the end, I was able to make sure that Jeb's safe water landing was ensured.
He touched down gracefully, and with that, it was yet another mission success.

I had a great time the day this was written reconnecting with Kerbal Space Program all over again.
It seems the key to that is in the creativity and thinking outside of just planes and rockets.
The absolute comedy and fun times were priceless indeed.

After everything this mission put him through — SRB chaos, spinning, plummeting, and that wild RCS ballet — you’d've expected the landing to end with him face-first in the dirt or bouncing 50 meters into the air, right? 
Nope. Not Jeb. Not this time.
He stuck that landing so cleanly, it looked like he’d been practicing for years.

Between my chaotic biplane crash landings, nuclear-powered balloon ships, and Red Bull Stratos tribute that spiraled gloriously out of control, I had successfully proven to myself (and hopefully to you) that KSP is less about "playing the game right" and more about playing the game like this here.

But here’s the thing I want to make clear while you're still here and I had time to ensure this was published the day it was written — I don’t want to do this alone anymore.
Kerbal Space Program is always more fun with others to geek out with, laugh about ridiculous creations, or even compete to see who can crash land the most spectacularly.
If any of this chaos resonates with you, why not be my Kerbal Space Friend?
You can add me on Discord and we can connect! To show me your fellow crazy builds, engage in multiplayer madness together, hang out and chat about how we keep accidentally discovering Kerbal “features"... all of that. Whatever strikes and thusly suits your fancy.

Again, to repeat, if interested, here’s the link to reach me: https://discord.gg/DeYg3aeu

Seriously, don’t make me have to start chucking Kerbals into high Kerbin orbit until someone accepts my friend request. Let’s make some chaos together — Kerbal-style!

And so, my fellow Kerbonaut-kontrollers, to summarize, the day I wrote this, this holiday season, I didn’t break physics — I just bent it until it started laughing with me. 
Gravity was like, 'Hey, you can’t just float here forever,' and my airship was like, "Bet." about it. 

And with that, I’m off to dream up even more ridiculous Kerbal adventures — hopefully with some of you by my side later because of this post.
if I don’t start seeing some friend requests soon, I’ll send Kerbals to kiss y'all until you all decide to be the one to investigate that Mystery Goo™ Containment Unit for science and the magic of friendship!
Consider all of yourselves warned.

Hopefully, one y'alls friendship shall be like the ultimate Kerbal Space Program expansion pack I didn’t know I needed something like something straight outta a blursed GameStop bargain bin.

And... with that... there you have it...
The end of this post!
"Until the next", you know?

Until then, fly safe. 
Or dangerously!
Whichever works.
 

[N_Danger]

I restarted my career save after some issues with the first one.

First orbital flight and EVA

Val is happy to be going home

Happy Landings were had

[Eclipse 32]

ima be messing with FFT fusion drives later, specifically the Z-pinch because in my, admittedly limited, research(i looked at their vac thrust, not even sure that's all of them), that's the highest thrust fusion drive. not quite ready to muck around with antimatter, first need to see how big it goes boom if the containment goes unpowered.

[Eclipse 32]

i kinda want to see someone land a class i comet on the VAB. just so we can see which is bigger. and if the comet is big enough to instantly crush the VAB