What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Duke MelTdoWn]

3 hours ago, mrmoo said:

And J.F. Kerman has declared that 'AeroKerb' (my space program) will land Kerbals on Minmus within the next 3 years to finally confirm whether the surface IS mint chocolate chip or bubblegum ice cream. 

Just don't lick it! Your tongue will freeze to the surface (speaking from experience).

[Duke MelTdoWn]

The past days I continued to play around with the concept of a cheap SSTO for small payloads.
These are derived from the 'Gisl' Light Shuttle.
The idea is to keep the frontal area small and use only a single Rapier.

A Commnet consisting of 3 relays around the Mun was established in Sandbox.
I was getting tired of comm blackouts during testing.
The 'Gler' Small Sat Launcher worked great to release the sats, but broke up when it landed back in Kerbins water.
Eric Meyer made this great tool to calculate the orbit for the parent ship: https://meyerweb.com/eric/ksp/resonant-orbits/

Spoiler

 

Because 'Gler' worked well, I started working on the 1.3 ton Micro Munlander 'Graup'.
Reentry testing went well (third time is the charm). The fuel tanks were destroyed on touchdown under parachute.
Newest version has landing legs, so Mun mission probably coming soon.

Spoiler

 

[SpacePixel]

 

This is the Superlifter. Small, compared to other large contraptions, but I hope somewhat more useful. This is my first spaceplane with larger than 5 meter fuselage at around 6.5 meters. Of course, the main use is lifting huge (but not too heavy, we've only 16 engines) payloads into low orbit. The fuselage, unfortunately, does look rather bland -- I might need to spruce it up with more flags, but I'm extremely happy with the wing. It does seem lifted off a subsonic airliner, but it grounds the vehicle with its more realistic shape and volume. The stabilizers are a little bit bigger and elaborate than strictly necessary, hopefully giving a mild sci fi vibe. The nose swivels up to allow payload deployment. 

[pinolallo]

For such a vehicle rapier is an overshoot: a scram turbojet and an aerospike will do the job a much cheaper cost. 

Edited Thursday at 11:55 AM by pinolallo

[king of nowhere]

my circumnavigation of kerbin through mountains has found some of the most beautiful terrain ever

i like driving in such terrain, which probably makes me some kind of masochist

[mrmoo]

I designed and landed my Koncord-X in the Arctic with a built in rover so that my Minmus crew could 'practice' for EVAs when they land on the moon. 

Plane is here.

19 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

Just don't lick it! Your tongue will freeze to the surface (speaking from experience).

Scientists at the KSC have now decided that the crew will take a sample, bring it inside to allow it to sublimate and inhale it through their nose.

[Eclipse 32]

a few days ago, i passed a brain fart. i built a science space station(the first space station in this save). it has a lab and everything! everything, that is, except the science experiments. we're not letting Bob near the KSC until we get the engineers that made that mistake out of the country.

[Lyra]

11 hours ago, SpacePixel said:

 

This is the Superlifter. Small, compared to other large contraptions, but I hope somewhat more useful. This is my first spaceplane with larger than 5 meter fuselage at around 6.5 meters. Of course, the main use is lifting huge (but not too heavy, we've only 16 engines) payloads into low orbit. The fuselage, unfortunately, does look rather bland -- I might need to spruce it up with more flags, but I'm extremely happy with the wing. It does seem lifted off a subsonic airliner, but it grounds the vehicle with its more realistic shape and volume. The stabilizers are a little bit bigger and elaborate than strictly necessary, hopefully giving a mild sci fi vibe. The nose swivels up to allow payload deployment. 

How are you able to make the nose swivel? I've attempted reverse-engineering of nose/tail hinges with fairings a few times before but they either get stuck or summon the Kraken every time. Especially ones with lots of extra mass, like a cockpit or a fuel tank.

[kurgut]

Today, (well yesterday, but here's the mission report edited in a video format), our brave kerbonauts Jeb and Bob went to Minmus - in my IVA only career - to get an answer to every Kerbal most urgent, and ancient question : What does Minmus taste like ?

We now have the answer !

Cheers

Edited Thursday at 11:21 PM by kurgut

[pinolallo]

Today I posted some stock beauties in https://kerbalx.com/
In a career game focused on Tourist contracts you need a very cheap SSTO very early in a game and these ships are made without the need of a Rapier engine, very flyable with docking capabilities. 

Actually I prefer some modded versions but that later on the game.

The  very good VSO  https://kerbalx.com/pinolallo/VSO

 

mass: 16.81t

cost: 25,200

parts: 39

crew: 3

and the FlashNight https://kerbalx.com/pinolallo/FlashNight-Stock

 

mass:19.82t

cost: 32,742

parts: 40

crew: 6

Edited Friday at 12:43 AM by pinolallo

[Eclipse 32]

math question, how strong would the FFT big fusion fuel tank have to be to survive lithobreaking at ~200m/s?

[Duke MelTdoWn]

On 12/19/2024 at 12:54 PM, pinolallo said:

For such a vehicle rapier is an overshoot: a scram turbojet and an aerospike will do the job a much cheaper cost. 

This got me thinking. First, I tried to make the Super Guppy III Heavy Cargo SSTO cheaper by replacing its 16 Raptors with 8 Whiplash and 4 Darts.
No success getting this into orbit, and I could not be bothered to completely redesign it to strap more engines on.

Then I turned my eye on cheap passenger SSTOs.
'MunAir' seats 8 and only costs 42,000 because it uses 2 Whiplash + 1 Dart.
Delta-V left in LKO is ~ 1450 m/s with passengers.
Compare this to the 55,475 for a 'Skidbladner' (2x Rapier, 1600 m/s left in LKO) in the same weight class.

1450 m/s is barely enough to get into Mun orbit and back to Kerbin.
I used the prototype to rescue the crew of 'Gladr BF', who were stranded in low Mun orbit.
The position of the docking ports needs some rework, but I was able to soft-dock (the ports attracted each other without latching).
41 m/s were left on touchdown at Kerbin after 3 aerobrake passes.

Spoiler

'Gladr BF' was a partial success. I managed to land on the Mun with a single stage, but did not make it back to Kerbin without help.
The 'Gladr' program has since then pivoted to a Light Lander and Light Reusable Launcher.
 

[Eclipse 32]

umm... kinda important question... how many fingers do kerbals have?

[Lyra]

8 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

Then I turned my eye on cheap passenger SSTOs.
'MunAir' seats 8 and only costs 42,000 because it uses 2 Whiplash + 1 Dart.
Delta-V left in LKO is ~ 1450 m/s with passengers.
Compare this to the 55,475 for a 'Skidbladner' (2x Rapier, 1600 m/s left in LKO) in the same weight class.

1450 m/s is barely enough to get into Mun orbit and back to Kerbin.

I actually got inspired by this and began designing a Rapier/Nerv craft with a similar design/purpose. I was able to get it down to under 47,000 funds total with a range of 2000+ in 100 km LKO, but it's missing a few of your cargo bay features (namely the parachutes, radiator, ladder, and cargo module). With these removed it gave me room to replace the expensive probe core and reaction wheel with a Mk1 command pod. I also swapped out the Jr docking port with an inflatable airlock, because the latter is cheaper for some reason.

If you can land back at the KSC, Rapier/Nerv craft will probably be a lot more ergonomic because of the much higher efficiency (Rapiers have a higher top speed, and Nerv's vacuum Isp is simply unparalleled). For something like the Super Guppy III, Rapier-only will suffice if you're just using it for cargo; it saves on dry mass and cost, because 1 whiplash and 1 aerospike cost more than a single rapier.

"Mun Express" seats 9 and can easily orbit the Mun or Minmus and return. Haven't tested reentry but it should be stable. I might try replacing the Nerv with an aerospike, because while it's an amazingly efficient engine it is also stupid expensive.

 

[Scarecrow71]

Over the past several days I've done the following:

1. Placed yet another satellite in orbit around Minmus (Gemini IV).
2. Finished construction of a rover on Minmus (Gemini V).  Which required an Engineer, and I had a contract to plant a flag as well (Gemini VI).
3. Sent my first satellite into orbit of Kerbol (Legatus I).
4. Rescued my first stranded Kerbal from orbit of Mun (Auctor IX).
5. Sent my first probe to Eve (Venator I).  If I'm going there, I'm also going to drop off a satellite in orbit of Eve (Venator II) and then bring the carrier ship back home with that sweet, sweet science.

Apologies for the lack of images; Imgur is giving me fits today.  I will try to get some images up in the next day or so, especially the Venator I/II combo ship.  I'm pretty darned proud of myself (even if it was a 3 year round-trip).

[Scarecrow71]

And so, as promised yesterday, I've got some images.  These are all of the Venator program, so named as Venator is the latin word for Hunter, and what we are hunting right now is science points.  The first three letters, Ven, are also the first three letters in Venus, and Eve is the KSP equivalent of Venus.  So, that's why it's named thusly.  Anyhow, Venator I, with its payload hidden behind an engine plate, in LKO:

The payload is Venator II, which will be a permanent satellite in orbit of Eve.  We have to get to Eve first, and that window is just over a year away.  So we fast forward to the window, and then send the ship on her way.  But first, we have an alarm for 200 days out for Legatus I to circularize around Kerbol.

That's a Pe of 16 billion meters (16Bm).  The Legatus program is for any craft that are in orbit of Kerbol, or those craft that enter Kerbolar orbit and then return to Kerbin without stopping anywhere else.  Legatus is the latin word for Ambassador, and these craft are our first ambassadors into the Kerbolar system.  Anyhow, time to finish the warp and get on with the Venator program.

That's not bad, actually.  I'll have to do a mid-course correction to get a bit closer, but for the initial burn, I'll take it!

And there we are in a nice orbit of Eve.  Not equatorial, unfortunately; would have cost pretty much all of my fuel just to do that, and I needed to get Venator I home with all that science I collected.  Once we deploy Venator II, we can work on getting home.

Venator I:

Venator II:

And the orbits from map view:

A bit of space junk there that needs to be decommissioned, but otherwise a rousing success!  The next window home was 1 year, 87 days away.  Another long time warp, and then I got Venator I safely home with about 800 science.  Remember that these are probes, so that number is low because no Crew Reports and no EVA Reports.  I also didn't bring any materials bays, and I didn't dip into Eve's atmosphere.  Nor did I get into near Eve orbit.  Lot of science still to be had with Eve, which I will try to grab with Venator III (which will be a probe landing on the surface and, hopefully, coming home).

[Duke MelTdoWn]

18 hours ago, Lyra said:

If you can land back at the KSC, Rapier/Nerv craft will probably be a lot more ergonomic because of the much higher efficiency (Rapiers have a higher top speed, and Nerv's vacuum Isp is simply unparalleled). For something like the Super Guppy III, Rapier-only will suffice if you're just using it for cargo; it saves on dry mass and cost, because 1 whiplash and 1 aerospike cost more than a single rapier.

"Mun Express" seats 9 and can easily orbit the Mun or Minmus and return. Haven't tested reentry but it should be stable. I might try replacing the Nerv with an aerospike, because while it's an amazingly efficient engine it is also stupid expensive.

Spaceplanes are such fun, and I love the Nerva. One other great advantage besides the great ISP is that it runs on LF only. This makes it very attractive for space planes, you can run most of the mission without heavy oxidizer.

That being said, it really comes into its own for interplanetary distances. To just get tourists into Mun orbit it seems like overkill.

Yesterday I continued testing MunAir designs with different engine combinations. Below is an overview of the parts of the Passenger shuttle design space I explored so far:

Meltdowns Passenger SSTOs

Name	# Pass.	delta-V  *)	Engines	Weight	Price	Comments
Minimalist SSTO I	1	100 m/s	2x Wheesley, 1x Swivel	17.99 tons	12,423	Tech level 5 (183 total science)
Falhofnir	4	1720 m/s	1x Rapier	18.2 tons	28,815	MK1 low frontal area
Sleipnir	4	1620 m/s	1x Rapier	19.0 tons	35,000	Fuel tank in cargo bay
MunAir JB	8	930 m/s	1x Rapier	20.9 tons	35,035	Fuel tank in cargo bay
MunAir JD	8	1190 m/s	1x Rapier, 1x Terrier	21.2 tons	37,835	Terrier in cargo bay
MunAir KA	8	1160 m/s	1x Rapier, 1x Terrier	18.4 tons	31,635	Terrier + External seats in cargo bay
MunAir CA	8	1500 m/s	2x Whiplash, 1x Dart	32.9 tons	42,800	Low TWR on single Dart only
MunAir DE	8	1420 m/s	2x Whiplash, 2x Dart	33.9 tons	47,400	Good TWR throughout
Gisl	2	2950 m/s	1x Rapier, 1x Nerva	15.1 tons	34,232	Mk1 low frontal area, flip at 40 km
Skidbladner	8	1600 m/s	2x Rapier	33.3 tons	55,475	Good TWR & cargo capacity
Teardrop	4	3480 m/s	1x Rapier, 2x Nerva	28.6 tons	58,856	Aero exploits; L/D ratio 7 @ Mach 7
Sancus	8	6050 m/s	2x Rapier, 2x Nerva	69.2 tons	85,762	Aero exploits; L/D ratio 5 @ Mach 7
Valkyrie	4	4360 m/s	1x Thoroughbred, 1x Dart, 2x Nerva	31.58 tons	63,935	2 stage, expendable booster
Valhalla	4	6400 m/s	4x Kickback, 3x Dart, 4x Nerva	51.52 tons	116,520	3 stage, recoverable 2nd stage

*) after insertion into 75x75 km Kerbin orbit, without passengers

Some things I noticed:
- It seems to be impossible to get 1500 m/s for 8 passengers from a single Rapier without exploits. For 4 passengers it is no problem. Must be the additional drag?
- Low drag is important for optimal performance, that is why I put RCS and parachutes etc. inside cargo bays.
- Minimize frontal area for even lower drag.
- Aero exploits like fairing occlusion and heatshield lift are very powerful.
- Two engine designs can offer optimal combinations but require unorthodox engine placement.

'MunAir KA' only offers economy seats, but you can bask in the glow of the Terrier hiding in the cargo bay.

'Gisl' firing its Nerva after flipping 180° at 40 km altitude

'MunAir CA' on approach to KSC after overshooting during reentry testing.

'MunAir FD' "landing" at Island Airfield during agility testing.

[kurgut]

Today, I continued working on my current project : a re-creation-ish of the vehicle in the game FAR : lone sails  (this is a gem btw).

I did good progress already, made a lot of custom parts for it.
At the end, I'd really to love to make a KSP cinematic with this, and with some story elements into it... : )

The thing ^^

It's very "steampunk" universe, there's a fuel burner (shown below) inside, which makes those giant gears spinning, which then, through some piston shenanigans, makes the giant wheel rotate, and make the thing move : P So the exhaust flames are just for coolness here, no thrust comes from them hehe

WIP fuel burner, didn't finish yet, but there's a platform with an elevator that feeds some packaged fuel into the machine basicly, and I tought it would cool to make the actual burner, so I made some cylinder with some waterfall configs for it :

So yes, it's very big, there are 3 floors inside ^^

WIP Control station :

From the control station, looking at the back. And there's even an elevator to go between floors haha

Front access :

Back access :

There's still a ton to be done, but at least it has some shape now ^^

Oh, also, I will somehow need to figure out how to make a retractable sail for it (helloo countless hours in blender lol), and make sure it works with KerbalWind mod too !

Also, huge day ! I finally understood more how the different shaders work in KSP, this plus the usage of the awesome Resurfaced mod, aaaaaand also now using Substance Painter 3D ( instead of my horrible photoshop drawings attempts for textures), this simplifies the part material / texturing workflow sooo much for me, and improves quality by a ton ! : D (in the screenshot of the control station, the rectangle around the Energy gauge is example made in 10 minutes to test it)
 

Cheers, and happy ending to the year to all if I don't repost until then : )

Edited Saturday at 05:51 PM by kurgut

[Eclipse 32]

i built a one kiloton space station. it has ALL THE FUELS. and 512m/s of Dv cus it's so stupidly heavy. and it needs to go to Eeloo. help me

[Duke MelTdoWn]

2 hours ago, Eclipse 32 said:

i built a one kiloton space station. it has ALL THE FUELS. and 512m/s of Dv cus it's so stupidly heavy. and it needs to go to Eeloo. help me

Is the challenge to get 1 kt of unused fuel to Eeloo or why do you have so little delta-v? Wrong type of fuel? 

[Eclipse 32]

16 minutes ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

Is the challenge to get 1 kt of unused fuel to Eeloo or why do you have so little delta-v? Wrong type of fuel? 

no, someone on a challenge i made wanted me to do it. the reason it has so little Dv is due to the fact that the engines i put on the bottom are woefully underpowered to move this behemoth. ima switch them out for some incredibly cheaty 8000kn reactionless warp drive things.

or smh

i'm mainly screwing around until i am in possession of a computer that can run KSP, as my current PC(a janky, old Chromebook) refuses to acknowledge the existence of steam, let alone KSP. they don't show up in the app store, so i have pretty much no way to play except on the family PC.

[Lyra]

12 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

Some things I noticed:
- It seems to be impossible to get 1500 m/s for 8 passengers from a single Rapier without exploits. For 4 passengers it is no problem. Must be the additional drag?
- Low drag is important for optimal performance, that is why I put RCS and parachutes etc. inside cargo bays.
- Minimize frontal area for even lower drag.

It's probably the drag and the dry mass combined; passenger compartments are surprisingly heavy.

To really reduce drag, you can also give your craft's wings some angle of incidence so that you can still gain lift while pointing close to prograde and minimize drag from the fuselage. Unfortunately it also severely restricts cool wing designs.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

7 hours ago, Lyra said:

It's probably the drag and the dry mass combined; passenger compartments are surprisingly heavy.

To really reduce drag, you can also give your craft's wings some angle of incidence so that you can still gain lift while pointing close to prograde and minimize drag from the fuselage. Unfortunately it also severely restricts cool wing designs.

Yeah that is a good tip, I like to incline my wings by 3°-5°.

If you really, really want to reduce drag, you can also cheat. By moving the side pods inwards so that they clip through the cargo bay far enough, you can reduce their drag to 0  ("fairing occlusion"). 

'MunAir NC' with aero exploits; 1000 m/s left in LKO with 8 passengers. The MK1 passenger cabins produce 0 drag because KSP thinks they are inside a fairing.

[SpacePixel]

Continuing the 2022 study of Tylo exploration craft (man, time flies)

First off, the new lander carries the exploration rover all the way to the surface and deploys a ramp (pictured). This is a change I felt was necessary after stranding two kerbonauts on Tylo after using a little too much fuel of ascent stage when touching down.

Second, I went with robotic-powered wheels as normal wheels just wouldn't fit in 3.75 meter fairing. Steering is achieved with RPM differential, and the speed is bound to throttle. Robowheels inflate the partcount and don't allow travel above 20 m/s, but work beautiful - they have a nice bouncy suspension, have very little inclination for sliding when parked and make for smooth powersliding when driving -- it's virtually impossible to flip the rover! More than that, smaller Parallax terrain colliders were generally not an issue during testing.

Finally, the rover got a bunch of grip pads all over the place. The intention is that if it should roll over or hit a rock, these should prevent damage to the hull as grip pads withstand collisions at speeds of up to 60 m/s. Current performance is not super-clear, sometimes they work and sometimes not so much. The hope is that it should help me reduce the number of reloads per mile travelled. 

[SchwinnTropius]

2 hours ago, SpacePixel said:

Second, I went with robotic-powered wheels as normal wheels just wouldn't fit in 3.75 meter fairing. Steering is achieved with RPM differential, and the speed is bound to throttle. Robowheels inflate the partcount and don't allow travel above 20 m/s, but work beautiful - they have a nice bouncy suspension, have very little inclination for sliding when parked and make for smooth powersliding when driving -- it's virtually impossible to flip the rover! More than that, smaller Parallax terrain colliders were generally not an issue during testing.

I've been toying with this idea in my head for a while now, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one.