What did you do in KSP1 today?

[TheKspEngineer]

22 hours ago, GIROLD.co said:

war

GIROLD.co:

 

 

Edited Sunday at 05:26 PM by TheKspEngineer

[spaghetti kerman]

i stranded billy kerman on the mun by staging error while horizontal

[Eclipse 32]

did war upon CKAN. CKAN won.

1 hour ago, spaghetti kerman said:

i stranded billy kerman on the mun by staging error while horizontal

... damn, what visual mods you got?

[spaghetti kerman]

46 minutes ago, Eclipse 32 said:

did war upon CKAN. CKAN won.

... damn, what visual mods you got?

i use blackrack's volumetric clouds, scatterer, TUFX, reflective visors, and if this ones even a visual mod, kopernicus expansion continued-er

[Eclipse 32]

CKAN is hard. that's all i got today, so far.

[Eclipse 32]

i have triumphed over CKAN and i feel omnipotent.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

Meltdowns career, day 55-57

Did some more contracts, and am juggling crew around so they get Mun and Minmus experience.

'Gege' landed in the East Crater of the Mun; sadly on the nightside so I could test the mining only a little bit. The problem with toppling over when landing in steep terrain seems to be solved with this new design. 'Gege' then returned to MunStation II, as did MunMiner II.

I recovered a vessel that had landed on Minmus. Actually, it had been constructed from spare parts in MinmusBase I. I sent this back over a year ago (in real time). Good that old me thought to repurpose a fairing as heat shield. Flyby of Eve is the next milestone.

A year ago:

Now:

'Teardrop II' arrived with experienced crew from Minmus (with a gravity assist at the Mun) at 'Pannychis' in LKO. Hard docking did not work because the cargo bay doors are in the way. Had to exchange crew by EVA. Teardrop II then made its way to MunStation II.

Edited Monday at 09:47 PM by Duke MelTdoWn

[Duke MelTdoWn]

Contract: transfer ore from Mun to Kerbin orbit. I just took some ore already stored in MunStation I, loaded it into 'Reginn', then just flew slightly out of Mun SOI and then back to MunStation I again.

Contract: scan temperature on Mun near Career Rover 03. This 'Cheap Rover' has been on the Mun since 46 days and is still functioning.

Contract: scan a Boabab tree with a large arm. I know a tree 10 km from KSC, but I surely am not driving there!

[Eclipse 32]

can someone make a CKAN patch that keeps the loading time down? e.g. removing redundant MM patches?

[Duke MelTdoWn]

Meltdowns career, day 55-57 continued

Contract: temperature scans on Mun surface. I used a 'Samaritan' rover that was already parked at the surface only 300 km away due north. Also scanned a Mun crater on the way. Messed up first landing attempt and second one was very close call too.

Contract: repair a Rover on Minmus and drive it to destination. Why bother with repairing when 'Sandworm' can just pick it up with its robotic arm? While driving full speed at night on the Flats, I hit a Green Sandstone and had to reload.

Contract: build a base for five and land it on the Mun. I did a launch of a second 'Gege' lander and a 'Runabout' orbital shuttle to MunStation I. Used a Medium Reusable Launcher II again.

Contract: repair a Sat in Kerbin orbit. Of course it is in retrograde orbit, so I needed a dedicated launch. To keep launch costs down, I used a modified 'Gisl' shuttle with external command seat inside a payload fairing so I can do EVA. These designs require a flip maneuver at 40 km before engaging the Nerva 2nd stage hiding under the front cowl. I slightly messed this up and almost did not make it to orbit. Also takes a lot of delta-v to get to the Sat, but I will probably make it back to Kerbin afterwards.

Contract: build a base for five with lab and land it on Minmus. 'Cerulean' base has wide stance and low center of gravity. It will be docked in orbit with MinmusStation to serve as additional lab module after the contract is completed. Launched using a modified Light Reusable Launcher with extra Kickbacks, which might have been overkill.

Edited Tuesday at 05:46 PM by Duke MelTdoWn

[FTLparachute]

I finally succeeded in launching this atrocity - the Jool 6 (creative i know). It has 925 parts, and will be used over the coming months to perform a Jool V mission.

I also very likely gave all KSC staff fatal respiratory problems from the exhaust.

[Martian Emigrant]

Hi all.

 

Been putsing about with my career game now that all techs are unlocked and got plenty of cash to play around.

 

Sent a Pony-a-naut on a solar chair to Minmus from LKO.

 

Spoiler

He (Perhaps she. Not sure what they are. )  landed something like 150m away from the station but we discovered that you can use the solar panels to walk and hop the chair closer in.

After spending the Minmus night indoor and having snacks with the guys and gals returned to Kerbin.

 

ME

[Eclipse 32]

with my many, many mods, i discovered "Dreskiller Base". it's very, very, VERY purple. fairly sure it's not supposed to be...(texture's broken, I'm pretty sure) anyways, found it while on route to a neighboring star system, made a lander, crashed said lander during testing, killing both crew, and decided it's good enough. I'll be landing it later today or tomorrow(or tonight).

[miklkit]

Took out my 2nd largest spaceplane (482 tons) to see how it does.  Flies fine so sent it to the Mun to test the large rover it carries.  Turned out the rover would not decouple.............

All dressed up and nowhere to go. 

So back it went and it turns out it flies way better than it looks.

[Linkageless]

Today, I am putting probes in a badger.

[FTLparachute]

11 minutes ago, Linkageless said:

Today, I am putting probes in a badger.

this thread confuses me

[Linkageless]

The badger is perched on a Razorbill.  I'll be sending both to Minmus where they will fill their bellies and hopefully the Razorbill will later be joined by some more Razorbills for bit of a frolic around LKO.

[Misguided Kerbal]

I mean, really, where am I supposed to even begin? I suppose it's truly been quite a long time since I've last properly picked up KSP - in fact, my last WDYDIKSPT (I still am quite the fan of that but ever-so-unwieldy acronym) dates back to nearly two years ago at this point. Truly, a lot of time has passed since then, and a lot has changed - I'd go on and on furthermore, but of course I understand this is the WDYDIKSPT thread (haha, I found an excuse to say it again) and not one for more personal ramblings. 

My point is, regardless, my KSP itch is ever-so-present and perennial, and, despite my concerns in part of the current state of the KSP community and the future of the forums, I've decided to try and just make the best that I can out of it. Thus, we begin by revisiting a couple of old flames that I seem to just be entirely incapable of taking my mind off of  - although, considering the enjoyment I've managed to wring from such, perhaps that's really much for the better.

Spoiler

I suppose this is really trawling back especially deep. But, nonetheless, back then I did in fact list a number of upgrades I wanted to make to this horizontal lander concept sometime - I actually only remembered to link back to said post after the fact, but I suppose, even after three years or so, my thought processes overall remain relatively the same. You may notice, flipping back in comparison, that everything is noticeably a lot more crisper in these present screenshots - I'm truly not quite sure how it took me this long, but I finally scaled KSP up to my Macbook's native resolution (speaking of which - my hardware specs haven't changed at all, I'm still flying on my 2020 Macbook Pro), to the detriment of only a smidgen of FPS. I also did finally get around to actually supersampling my screenshots as well - I suppose I do still pay in the storage-side cost of things (~14-20 mb for a single screenshot!) but then again, I also do now end up with 5k screenshots, so... Really, I can't complain much in the slightest. I'm also quite acutely aware of just how related this is to my horizontal lander development, but, alas, I just wanted to but briefly gush about how beautiful my game has become.

Well, okay, I swear this is all actually wholly and entirely related to the topic at hand - see, I really wanted to curate a new selection of personal desktop wallpapers, and I thought that more than an excessive number of shots of my horizontal lander on the Mun's surface would surely lead to some nice results

Anyway, let's finally get into the actual engineering side of things here - up top, you can see the ghostly outline of the former iteration of such design. Really, I'd say the overall changes made are relatively minor - a revised landing gear placement, some additional RCS, a proper service bay for storing cargo-esque things (and maybe a spare kerbal or two...), a proper docking port and control point on the back as mentioned prior, a wholesale ditching of the shielded Clamp-O-Tron Jr. with an option more befitting of vacuum, a wholly revised vernier engine section... 

Okay, perhaps the changes I've made to the overall design constitute just a tad bit more than what could be otherwise classified as just 'minor'... but, nonetheless, I do believe the overall spirit of the original design remains intact. The ship of Theseus embarks...

I feel like this particular deployment of things reminds me of some sort of avian mating ritual...

Anyway, we begin our campaign of testing here by cheating this thing to the Mun yet again, in lieu of actual perspiration - we're here to gauge the lander's overall munar performance, after all - something something direct to the source. My picturesque wallpapers...

I should add here that I do believe the work Benjee10 has done on their historical kerbal suit collection has turned out absolutely spectacularly - never before have we romped on the mun in such fashion and style, jetpacking into mun rocks with ten times the charisma as before!

Anyway, once everyone gets back in, we begin the initiation of actual flight testing. 

Just as expected, takeoff on the verniers and the transition to the poodle flight engine is just as smooth, if not moreso than it was before. However, the liftoff does leave me pondering - given the loading of, say, additional payload in the forward service module, and perhaps only a half-tank of fuel in the rear, how would vertical takeoff with an overall adjusted CoM still fare? Unfortunately, that wasn't necessarily something I thought of to test in the moment  - although I suppose that certainly leaves the future prospect of another future redesign. I'm picturing now perhaps a variant with the service module located directly in the center, sandwiched between the sets of verniers, or even an alteration with, say, a set of drills and an ore tank sandwiched in said space as well. I have to say, that is one of the things I truly do love about KSP, the fact that you can in fact do something like that. Anyway, I feel I'm getting just a tad too lost in thought here - coming up is our landing burn.

Our brief poodle thrust launched us on but a brief suborbital trajectory, so, as time move forwards, we begin falling back to the surface of the mun. I suppose I should mention here that it would perhaps be just a tad more intelligent to descend on the much more efficient poodle - alas, I most certainly didn't think of such at the time, but that'll probably be integrated into proper landing procedures going forwards, with more experience. I do plan on actually using this lander, of course, as I have done (or at least are attempting to do) with my other experimental designs, especially in my current ongoing playthrough (Starbound, a mission report of mine, which you can find sitting right down in my signature! Alright, I promise I'll stop the shameless self plug right here.)

And here might I bring up one of the particular detriments of this somewhat narrow-based landing gear configuration: great susceptibility to things such as roll. In this case, I must've landed just a tad bit too hard, along with contacting different portions of the landing gear on regolith at different times, leading to it all entirely flipping over.

...fortunately, my propensity of clipping but enormously overpowered sets of reaction wheels into spacecraft pays off quite well here - as you can see, we simply just flip back over without much of a hitch in the slightest. It seems our resulting lander emerges relatively quite unscathed - two of the baguette tanks on the rear are missing, along with the top docking port and the communications dish, but... I'm sure we didn't need any of that anyway 

 

 

Spoiler

Of course, how could I mess around so much with the horizontal lander without also considering another longstanding passion of mine, also last toyed with over two years ago as well? In those posts, at least, the former, I do believe I pretty much listed out the grievances of the design I arrived at there - noticeably, the various issues encountered with maneuverability, stability, and the like, the result of what I can guess as a number of specific reasons:

- The particular location of the CoL in relation to that of the CoM, being nearly entirely tied up in the paraglider generating the majority of the lift in the first place, placed high above the CoM and thus leading to:

- The distance of the CoM from the CoL, as well as the distance of any sort of control surfaces (for instance, the absolutely inane amount of reaction wheel power clipped into the lower capsule body, located far away from the paraglider) - this then causes what I can really otherwise only describe as a pendulum effect. At best, the capsule moves the entire rigid paraglider assemblage along with it - but, of course, this pivots strictly at the capsule itself, and the aerodynamic effects such causes are then, well, predictably just all over the place. It may perhaps make more sense here to imagine, instead of the wonderful paraglider from Knes, just a wing on top of a ton of I-beams in its stead - as such essentially is what the game treats this as. Thus, if you do imagine trying to fly such an imaginary craft then, I think it is relatively easy to extrapolate just the sheer difficulty of trying to perform any practical feats with such. TL;DR - while I do believe the paragliding gemini thing performs right wonderfully, it flies about as well as if it had a tower of I-beams and a singular wing on top in its stead.

Thus, to that effect, I have developed but a most elegant solution:

Not pictured here, but with this wonder we can bypass the need for a paraglider altogether, as everything simply extends, with the help of but many pistons, outwards! Does this not look like but just the most practically elegant capsule shape to your eyes, as it does to mine? I originally designed this wholly as a joke, but it actually flew much much better than I could've ever expected. I really don't know what else to say here - I'll spare your eyes from having to witness this, er, creation for any longer.

Okay, perhaps that's not it...

And here we can see my very original refinement of the design, which actually seems to have exactly nothing to do with my prior listed points in the slightest. Instead, all I seem to really have done here is just lengthening the fuselage, with the addition of that rear service bay. I'm not quite necessarily sure what I was thinking when I did this, actually - I think I may have had some thoughts of gaining greater control authority with a slightly more distributed array of control inputs (in that case, of course, even more reaction wheels) but that really doesn't seem to hold up to further scrutiny. Ultimately I think I may just have wanted to add a service bay purely for the sake of having one - perhaps occasionally ferrying cargo or science pallets or the like, I really don't know. Thank you, students, for attending this session of Forensics 101.

Actually, I suppose there is a bit more to the addition of the service bay than just that simple conclusion - as you can see here. I suppose I must have at least partly added said service bay to allow for the third rear kerbonaut to be able to effectively EVA, as shown here, which actually does make a lot more sense. Anyway, I have no further screenshots of this particular configuration - of course I performed further testing, but ultimately, this performed pretty much exactly the same as its predecessors, if not worse, bringing us right back to the drawing board...

And thus, behold, the conception of the next generation. I suppose it is really only inevitable that, with the continued advent of innovation, we stray but only further and further from the original baseline intent - that is, of course, the maintenance of a pure capsule shape. On one hand I view this particular development as a relative defeat, having finally crossed beyond one of my original design intents - but on the other hand, really, I'm actually quite proud of this design. It is certainly at least, I do believe, quite rather unique. 

As good engineers and proponents of the Engineering Design Process^TM, we must now subsequently trial this, er, craft and fully gauge its abilities.

I am sure those particular tires do quite enjoy the vacuum of space. Truly, I can proclaim this but a most sensible spacecraft design.

Here it is demonstrating some particular RCS port placement - I believe I abstained from sticking RCS ports directly on the top tip of the nose purely for aesthetic reasons, but the groundward tip of the nose has multiple lined up side by side, to assist in any sort of pitch maneuver.

Of course I suppose you can't really tell here by screenshot alone, but Pathfinder is currently indeed pointing retrograde, heat shield forwards. For whatever reason, I didn't think to take a screenshot of the craft fully engulfed in plasma - as predicted though, the wings all fully survived LKO reentry, which of course does provide quite a bit of subsequent relief.

And here, the paraglider deploys while the drogue is still active, in the upper atmosphere - the drogue itself is cut shortly after.

Just look at our now dramatically increased maneuverability! Seriously, the addition of additional lifting surfaces has rendered this just so much more of a joy to fly. 

With the much increased maneuverability afforded by these surfaces, of course, we manage to perfectly circle down and land on the sandy shores of... this remote, barren island. Of course, I'm sure our piloting Kerbonauts quite greatly enjoy such a thoughtful piloting position. Anyway, on the last picture here you can infact spot the bottom nosetip RCS ports I mentioned earlier.

After this, of course, I decided to do yet another testing run from orbit, albeit this time actually trying to aim for the KSC. 

Clearly, I haven't entirely lost my touch - well, except for that very final runway touchdown back there, where I overcompensated perhaps just a tad too much. Regardless, relying on gliding power alone, we pretty much made a perfectly straight approach into KSC from orbit. I suppose in the future I really ought to try some more challenging approaches, if just to shake things up, such as trying to fly into JNSQ's desert launch center - but I do believe this all serves as a relatively solid proof of concept.

Anyway, as one final hurdle of testing, I decided to stick this entire assemblage on an actual rocket and simulate an abort sequence. Why an abort sequence exactly? Well, of course, the shielded Clamp-O-Tron Jr. prevents the attachment of any real sort of LES tower, so that means this requires then a 'pusher' type of abort system integrated into the service module. I've been floating the idea of possibly swapping such out with just a normal Clamp-O-Tron Jr, and just eating the additional aero cost - but I suppose that really ought to wait for another day.

I also do, of course, want to test a hypothetical approach back to the KSC after such a maneuver, so, on top of a rocket it goes!

This particular rocket is definitely way overpowered for this sort of thing, but I've actually been meaning to trial this heavy lifter as well, so at least in part this mission knocks out two birds with one stone. That, and I think it seriously looks rather great, that as well.

Tell me that booster separation right there isn't just beautiful. Alright, now prepare for three more views of the exact same thing:

Anyway, now we finally initiate our abort sequence, which happened just a tad too quick for me to take a picture of, as well as necessitating my maneuvering of the capsule stack away from our accelerating rocket as well, of course.

Anyway, our drogue and subsequent paraglider are deployed, and we make a textbook approach and landing back at the KSC.

 

Edited yesterday at 01:43 AM by Misguided Kerbal

[Kimera Industries]

I decided to start planning my Grand Tour. As I was thinking through a mission through the stock system, I realized I could see the whole mission in my head—all of it, from the ship design to how I'd pull off the landings—and it was too easy. Granted, if I followed through with my original plan, it would still be a fun mission with many learning opportunities, but I want to challenge myself, more than ever before. So what could be more challenging than adding more planets? I wasn't planning on including Beyond Jool at first, but now I realize it's the perfect challenge.

Speaking of which, this mission will likely get its own thread on the forums like my Jool 5 did. I loved sharing that mission, but all of the ship design (which is half of KSP anyway) is dumped on you, with little explanation for why I did what I did. For this mission report, I'll document it from the beginning, hopefully giving a cool insight into how I think and how this kind of mission is planned.

Edited yesterday at 03:09 AM by Kimera Industries

[AlamoVampire]

i decided to take the leap guys. its been at least 4 years since last i slung a kerbal around. I stopped because of feared mod incompatibility. Well, the ones I am using seem to be working just fine, the only one that seemed to want an update was mechjeb2 and after poking my computer a bit to reveal its secrets of where the heck i put the mod and stuff like that, i put a fresh up to date MJ into the game and guys oh my god how much I have forgotten!!! I still have not touched my primary save opting instead to make a dummy save to see what works, what breaks and how much i remember so i dont risk my main save. just wow guys. just wow! i feel like im new all over again. kinda refreshing, kinda irritating all at once, knowing that deep inside me is the memory of how this stuff works and the frustration of not being able to make my fingers do what they should know by heart to do. i guess this is how the elderly feel? wish me luck yall. best part? my primary mod other than MJ procedural fairings? they work!!!

014601082025

Edited yesterday at 07:46 AM by AlamoVampire

[Duke MelTdoWn]

10 hours ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

I mean, really, where am I supposed to even begin? I suppose it's truly been quite a long time since I've last properly picked up KSP - in fact, my last WDYDIKSPT (I still am quite the fan of that but ever-so-unwieldy acronym) dates back to nearly two years ago at this point. 

3 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

i decided to take the leap guys. its been at least 4 years since last i slung a kerbal around.

It is nice that you guys are back playing! I also took a leave of a year, it takes some time to remember how things are done properly.

___________

Edit: 

I deleted some old screenshots from June 2014 (Alpha 0.23.5) from the Steam Cloud to clean up space for new craft files.
Back then, I was into triple or quadruple redundant landers for some reason, and did not appreciate the power of the Nerva.
ISRU was not invented yet, and I guess I did not understand how fuel and data transfer works? I surely was not aware of the F2 button.

 

Edited yesterday at 11:28 AM by Duke MelTdoWn

[Kimera Industries]

6 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

i decided to take the leap guys. its been at least 4 years since last i slung a kerbal around. I stopped because of feared mod incompatibility. Well, the ones I am using seem to be working just fine, the only one that seemed to want an update was mechjeb2 and after poking my computer a bit to reveal its secrets of where the heck i put the mod and stuff like that, i put a fresh up to date MJ into the game and guys oh my god how much I have forgotten!!! I still have not touched my primary save opting instead to make a dummy save to see what works, what breaks and how much i remember so i dont risk my main save. just wow guys. just wow! i feel like im new all over again. kinda refreshing, kinda irritating all at once, knowing that deep inside me is the memory of how this stuff works and the frustration of not being able to make my fingers do what they should know by heart to do. i guess this is how the elderly feel? wish me luck yall. best part? my primary mod other than MJ procedural fairings? they work!!!

014601082025

Oh! I was going to look at procedural fairings for you to see if it worked, but then KSP stopped working, and here I am. Glad it's working for you!

[Eclipse 32]

14 hours ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

I mean, really, where am I supposed to even begin? I suppose it's truly been quite a long time since I've last properly picked up KSP - in fact, my last WDYDIKSPT (I still am quite the fan of that but ever-so-unwieldy acronym) dates back to nearly two years ago at this point. Truly, a lot of time has passed since then, and a lot has changed - I'd go on and on furthermore, but of course I understand this is the WDYDIKSPT thread (haha, I found an excuse to say it again) and not one for more personal ramblings. 

My point is, regardless, my KSP itch is ever-so-present and perennial, and, despite my concerns in part of the current state of the KSP community and the future of the forums, I've decided to try and just make the best that I can out of it. Thus, we begin by revisiting a couple of old flames that I seem to just be entirely incapable of taking my mind off of  - although, considering the enjoyment I've managed to wring from such, perhaps that's really much for the better.

  Hide contents

I suppose this is really trawling back especially deep. But, nonetheless, back then I did in fact list a number of upgrades I wanted to make to this horizontal lander concept sometime - I actually only remembered to link back to said post after the fact, but I suppose, even after three years or so, my thought processes overall remain relatively the same. You may notice, flipping back in comparison, that everything is noticeably a lot more crisper in these present screenshots - I'm truly not quite sure how it took me this long, but I finally scaled KSP up to my Macbook's native resolution (speaking of which - my hardware specs haven't changed at all, I'm still flying on my 2020 Macbook Pro), to the detriment of only a smidgen of FPS. I also did finally get around to actually supersampling my screenshots as well - I suppose I do still pay in the storage-side cost of things (~14-20 mb for a single screenshot!) but then again, I also do now end up with 5k screenshots, so... Really, I can't complain much in the slightest. I'm also quite acutely aware of just how related this is to my horizontal lander development, but, alas, I just wanted to but briefly gush about how beautiful my game has become.

Well, okay, I swear this is all actually wholly and entirely related to the topic at hand - see, I really wanted to curate a new selection of personal desktop wallpapers, and I thought that more than an excessive number of shots of my horizontal lander on the Mun's surface would surely lead to some nice results

Anyway, let's finally get into the actual engineering side of things here - up top, you can see the ghostly outline of the former iteration of such design. Really, I'd say the overall changes made are relatively minor - a revised landing gear placement, some additional RCS, a proper service bay for storing cargo-esque things (and maybe a spare kerbal or two...), a proper docking port and control point on the back as mentioned prior, a wholesale ditching of the shielded Clamp-O-Tron Jr. with an option more befitting of vacuum, a wholly revised vernier engine section... 

Okay, perhaps the changes I've made to the overall design constitute just a tad bit more than what could be otherwise classified as just 'minor'... but, nonetheless, I do believe the overall spirit of the original design remains intact. The ship of Theseus embarks...

I feel like this particular deployment of things reminds me of some sort of avian mating ritual...

Anyway, we begin our campaign of testing here by cheating this thing to the Mun yet again, in lieu of actual perspiration - we're here to gauge the lander's overall munar performance, after all - something something direct to the source. My picturesque wallpapers...

I should add here that I do believe the work Benjee10 has done on their historical kerbal suit collection has turned out absolutely spectacularly - never before have we romped on the mun in such fashion and style, jetpacking into mun rocks with ten times the charisma as before!

Anyway, once everyone gets back in, we begin the initiation of actual flight testing. 

Just as expected, takeoff on the verniers and the transition to the poodle flight engine is just as smooth, if not moreso than it was before. However, the liftoff does leave me pondering - given the loading of, say, additional payload in the forward service module, and perhaps only a half-tank of fuel in the rear, how would vertical takeoff with an overall adjusted CoM still fare? Unfortunately, that wasn't necessarily something I thought of to test in the moment  - although I suppose that certainly leaves the future prospect of another future redesign. I'm picturing now perhaps a variant with the service module located directly in the center, sandwiched between the sets of verniers, or even an alteration with, say, a set of drills and an ore tank sandwiched in said space as well. I have to say, that is one of the things I truly do love about KSP, the fact that you can in fact do something like that. Anyway, I feel I'm getting just a tad too lost in thought here - coming up is our landing burn.

Our brief poodle thrust launched us on but a brief suborbital trajectory, so, as time move forwards, we begin falling back to the surface of the mun. I suppose I should mention here that it would perhaps be just a tad more intelligent to descend on the much more efficient poodle - alas, I most certainly didn't think of such at the time, but that'll probably be integrated into proper landing procedures going forwards, with more experience. I do plan on actually using this lander, of course, as I have done (or at least are attempting to do) with my other experimental designs, especially in my current ongoing playthrough (Starbound, a mission report of mine, which you can find sitting right down in my signature! Alright, I promise I'll stop the shameless self plug right here.)

And here might I bring up one of the particular detriments of this somewhat narrow-based landing gear configuration: great susceptibility to things such as roll. In this case, I must've landed just a tad bit too hard, along with contacting different portions of the landing gear on regolith at different times, leading to it all entirely flipping over.

...fortunately, my propensity of clipping but enormously overpowered sets of reaction wheels into spacecraft pays off quite well here - as you can see, we simply just flip back over without much of a hitch in the slightest. It seems our resulting lander emerges relatively quite unscathed - two of the baguette tanks on the rear are missing, along with the top docking port and the communications dish, but... I'm sure we didn't need any of that anyway 

 

 

  Hide contents

Of course, how could I mess around so much with the horizontal lander without also considering another longstanding passion of mine, also last toyed with over two years ago as well? In those posts, at least, the former, I do believe I pretty much listed out the grievances of the design I arrived at there - noticeably, the various issues encountered with maneuverability, stability, and the like, the result of what I can guess as a number of specific reasons:

- The particular location of the CoL in relation to that of the CoM, being nearly entirely tied up in the paraglider generating the majority of the lift in the first place, placed high above the CoM and thus leading to:

- The distance of the CoM from the CoL, as well as the distance of any sort of control surfaces (for instance, the absolutely inane amount of reaction wheel power clipped into the lower capsule body, located far away from the paraglider) - this then causes what I can really otherwise only describe as a pendulum effect. At best, the capsule moves the entire rigid paraglider assemblage along with it - but, of course, this pivots strictly at the capsule itself, and the aerodynamic effects such causes are then, well, predictably just all over the place. It may perhaps make more sense here to imagine, instead of the wonderful paraglider from Knes, just a wing on top of a ton of I-beams in its stead - as such essentially is what the game treats this as. Thus, if you do imagine trying to fly such an imaginary craft then, I think it is relatively easy to extrapolate just the sheer difficulty of trying to perform any practical feats with such. TL;DR - while I do believe the paragliding gemini thing performs right wonderfully, it flies about as well as if it had a tower of I-beams and a singular wing on top in its stead.

Thus, to that effect, I have developed but a most elegant solution:

Not pictured here, but with this wonder we can bypass the need for a paraglider altogether, as everything simply extends, with the help of but many pistons, outwards! Does this not look like but just the most practically elegant capsule shape to your eyes, as it does to mine? I originally designed this wholly as a joke, but it actually flew much much better than I could've ever expected. I really don't know what else to say here - I'll spare your eyes from having to witness this, er, creation for any longer.

Okay, perhaps that's not it...

And here we can see my very original refinement of the design, which actually seems to have exactly nothing to do with my prior listed points in the slightest. Instead, all I seem to really have done here is just lengthening the fuselage, with the addition of that rear service bay. I'm not quite necessarily sure what I was thinking when I did this, actually - I think I may have had some thoughts of gaining greater control authority with a slightly more distributed array of control inputs (in that case, of course, even more reaction wheels) but that really doesn't seem to hold up to further scrutiny. Ultimately I think I may just have wanted to add a service bay purely for the sake of having one - perhaps occasionally ferrying cargo or science pallets or the like, I really don't know. Thank you, students, for attending this session of Forensics 101.

Actually, I suppose there is a bit more to the addition of the service bay than just that simple conclusion - as you can see here. I suppose I must have at least partly added said service bay to allow for the third rear kerbonaut to be able to effectively EVA, as shown here, which actually does make a lot more sense. Anyway, I have no further screenshots of this particular configuration - of course I performed further testing, but ultimately, this performed pretty much exactly the same as its predecessors, if not worse, bringing us right back to the drawing board...

And thus, behold, the conception of the next generation. I suppose it is really only inevitable that, with the continued advent of innovation, we stray but only further and further from the original baseline intent - that is, of course, the maintenance of a pure capsule shape. On one hand I view this particular development as a relative defeat, having finally crossed beyond one of my original design intents - but on the other hand, really, I'm actually quite proud of this design. It is certainly at least, I do believe, quite rather unique. 

As good engineers and proponents of the Engineering Design Process^TM, we must now subsequently trial this, er, craft and fully gauge its abilities.

I am sure those particular tires do quite enjoy the vacuum of space. Truly, I can proclaim this but a most sensible spacecraft design.

Here it is demonstrating some particular RCS port placement - I believe I abstained from sticking RCS ports directly on the top tip of the nose purely for aesthetic reasons, but the groundward tip of the nose has multiple lined up side by side, to assist in any sort of pitch maneuver.

Of course I suppose you can't really tell here by screenshot alone, but Pathfinder is currently indeed pointing retrograde, heat shield forwards. For whatever reason, I didn't think to take a screenshot of the craft fully engulfed in plasma - as predicted though, the wings all fully survived LKO reentry, which of course does provide quite a bit of subsequent relief.

And here, the paraglider deploys while the drogue is still active, in the upper atmosphere - the drogue itself is cut shortly after.

Just look at our now dramatically increased maneuverability! Seriously, the addition of additional lifting surfaces has rendered this just so much more of a joy to fly. 

With the much increased maneuverability afforded by these surfaces, of course, we manage to perfectly circle down and land on the sandy shores of... this remote, barren island. Of course, I'm sure our piloting Kerbonauts quite greatly enjoy such a thoughtful piloting position. Anyway, on the last picture here you can infact spot the bottom nosetip RCS ports I mentioned earlier.

After this, of course, I decided to do yet another testing run from orbit, albeit this time actually trying to aim for the KSC. 

Clearly, I haven't entirely lost my touch - well, except for that very final runway touchdown back there, where I overcompensated perhaps just a tad too much. Regardless, relying on gliding power alone, we pretty much made a perfectly straight approach into KSC from orbit. I suppose in the future I really ought to try some more challenging approaches, if just to shake things up, such as trying to fly into JNSQ's desert launch center - but I do believe this all serves as a relatively solid proof of concept.

Anyway, as one final hurdle of testing, I decided to stick this entire assemblage on an actual rocket and simulate an abort sequence. Why an abort sequence exactly? Well, of course, the shielded Clamp-O-Tron Jr. prevents the attachment of any real sort of LES tower, so that means this requires then a 'pusher' type of abort system integrated into the service module. I've been floating the idea of possibly swapping such out with just a normal Clamp-O-Tron Jr, and just eating the additional aero cost - but I suppose that really ought to wait for another day.

I also do, of course, want to test a hypothetical approach back to the KSC after such a maneuver, so, on top of a rocket it goes!

This particular rocket is definitely way overpowered for this sort of thing, but I've actually been meaning to trial this heavy lifter as well, so at least in part this mission knocks out two birds with one stone. That, and I think it seriously looks rather great, that as well.

Tell me that booster separation right there isn't just beautiful. Alright, now prepare for three more views of the exact same thing:

Anyway, now we finally initiate our abort sequence, which happened just a tad too quick for me to take a picture of, as well as necessitating my maneuvering of the capsule stack away from our accelerating rocket as well, of course.

Anyway, our drogue and subsequent paraglider are deployed, and we make a textbook approach and landing back at the KSC.

 

welcome back!

[AlamoVampire]

1 hour ago, Kimera Industries said:

Oh! I was going to look at procedural fairings for you to see if it worked, but then KSP stopped working, and here I am. Glad it's working for you!

It took beating my head into a wall in elite dangerous to trigger me into ksp lol. I hope you get ksp going again and thanks for thinking about checking on procedural fairings for me  

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[FTLparachute]

14 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

I wasn't planning on including Beyond Jool at first, but now I realize it's the perfect challenge.

God, I don't even want to imagine what a stock parts only GT with Beyond Jool would look like...