What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Cavscout74]

I did a multitude of course corrections, assorted gather science missions from places I already have probes and tested an Eve atmospheric skimmer - designed to skim the upper atmosphere with a crew then return to orbit.  The test on Kerbin went well - despite totally forgetting any way to land/recover the test vehicle. 

It handled surprisingly well in, with a remarkably low stall speed

 

My Pioneer-Jool probe also finally arrived in the inner Jool system, did a flyby of Tylo & Laythe before entering Vall orbit.

[Eclipse 32]

looking for an anomaly:

 

hello?

 

hello?

hello?

hello?

[AlamoVampire]

@Eclipse 32 dunno if its just me and a borked connection but your images are not showing up, even if clcked on. did you use an image host site like imgur or try to direct upload from your computer?

 

Ok, now, onto my little run at science. I am currently in year 1 day 57 and change having JUST returned from minmus, where I did a landing! on tech that was all 90 per box or less! I am quite chuffed to be honest, a pleasing run! I ended my mission with about 660 science or so total <counting the 55 i had pre-launch>

My rocket  

The lander with a custom Kerbal onboard as pilot <named for me, so, no images showing that kerbal or its name for privacy sake> and Bob as my scientist. I learned something about that capsule on top. It has absolutely zero torque. Learned that during the landing back at kerbin. But, before I get back home, need to land on that minty green orb and see if its really mint ice cream <iykyk>!

Everyone already back on the ship, flag planted, samples gathered, ready to go!

My ship called Sci Mule 3.75 cruising towards home. Minmus says hey now, you cant do this with out a photobomb!

Capsule on top there with its lander stange/transfer stage/science stage below it. For those curious that plasma trail is actually hard coded INTO KSP and the mod that unlocks it is re-entry particle effects. Why it was never turned on by Squad/PD/TT/?? is/was never fully explained beyond "performance" being the reason. Works fine turned on if you ask me.

Drifting at 120m/s prior to full chute deploy. Going to be a wet yet soft landing! Mission COMPLETE!

Oh, also, prior to this mission, I launched a minor relay to about 80-100km. Have a look!

has a little engine behind it if I need to try to change its orbit. Its not much, its a gen 1 early tech tree, but, its something!

For now thats what today has seen me do. Im off to go get dinner. Why did I mention dinner? dunno, feel like sharing  

212001262025

[Krazy1]

20 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

I never do maths so much as sling a bunch of relays out into the void to ensure coverage,

Yeah me too... unless there's a problem.

Exploring Bop, which is in retrograde orbit with Principia. The lander and scanner probe both came from Pol at different times. The scanner probe did a bielliptic transfer from Pol with the orbit reversal at AP a Gm away from Jool to save dV - not enough xenon to go direct. The crewed ship took the direct route. Reversing orbit in Jool gravity took 4.2 km/s burn lasting 25 minutes with nuclear engines. 1st landing at the green monolith near the south pole:

Nice view from about 70 deg. south lat. The 4 inner planets all look so close to the sun from out at Jool. L to R: Eve, Kerbin, Duna, Kerbol, Moho

[dok_377]

@Eclipse 32 Are you trying to attach images from google mail? What in the world? You're the only one who can see them.

[AlamoVampire]

@dok_377 i questioned that too. Time will tell if they see us asking.

onto my newest headache. Im finally at a point after 3 runs at Minmus where I can put up real relays. I also unlocked mor MJ features and felt like I was having a legit stroke. Could not figure out why I suddenly couldnt launch an automated rocket via mechjeb. I set my altitude, hit engage autopilot, hit spacebar and watched more times than i want to admit as it just went NO! And fell onto the launch pad. My mistake? Failed to do a basic step. Check the staging. A decoupler was staging too soon and that was the issue. I feel stupid. Im better than that. But the old saying is true! Check your staging! 034601272025

Ok, here are some mission pictures. The launcher is roughly the same one used for the trio in LKO as well as the four in KEO. You will also see the relay itself. All 7 are the EXACT same relay set up with 1 exception. The final 1 has 6 hidden batteries buried inside the HECS. Aside from that, all 7 are identical. Just in differing orbits.

When you see the relay itself, you will think im a total nutter in just how BIG that launcher is. Well, go big or disappoint Jeb!

This shot is from one of the launches for the trio in LKO, but, like I said, its roughly the same launcher for both the LKO and KEO sets.

Id say for not having built a relay set like this in some time other than the test save, doing 7 of these in quick order, literally the trio back to back then KEO back to back. 

Spoiler contains our little relay. Is this suspenseful? I think it is? I dunno  

Spoiler

Yes, it is as small as you think it is.

Hope this was enjoyable.

051201272025

Edited Monday at 11:12 AM by AlamoVampire

[Eclipse 32]

well shoot. i can't get imgur to work, so back to the drawing board, i guess. *sigh*

[Eclipse 32]

i started a new save. the third unidentified object was class I.

two class I objects, about ten minutes into the save.

[Eclipse 32]

i just launched an unholy number of relay sats for a jool mission.

[Vanamonde]

2 hours ago, Eclipse 32 said:

well shoot. i can't get imgur to work, so back to the drawing board, i guess. *sigh*

Upload the pics, then go to your images, then copy the BBCode link straight into your post here with no formatting. 

[Duke MelTdoWn]

Career Day 65 - 66 was mainly routine operations. The first shuttles for this Mun-Minmus transfer window started to arrive at 'MinmusStation I'. After crew rotation, they flew straight back to the respective MunStations.

I recovered 'Naga II' and 'RyanAir'. I even hit the runway with 'RyanAir'! 'Naga II' was 53 km short and splashed down near Island Airfield. I had to take 4 shallow aerobrake passes with 'Naga II' because I had used a SEQ-9 cargo container as part of the stack and was afraid it would melt. This design flaw is fixed in 'Naga III'. 

Launched a 'Gler' with a contracted Sat to polar orbit and saw some nice auroras on the way.

In Sandbox, I started to design the 'Independence' class of SSTOs. These have a small converter on board so they can refuel themselves. Small drills are deployed from the forward cargo bay using robotics. This tech was originally developed for the 'Giraffa' rover about a year ago. The drawback is that refueling this way takes forever (weeks).

 

Edited Monday at 08:26 PM by Duke MelTdoWn

[FezCool]

Within the past week I returned to playing this game on a whim after a break of two years. I sent a couple craft into interplanetary space and my game is now a jumble of different alarms for 3 years into the future when the craft will actually arrive. 

Today the Moho mission I sent over 2 years ago returned to Kerbin and I spent a substanial amount of time redoing the approach as we were going 4.5kms per second on initial approach. 

Since we still had 3k deltaV on the mothership which was hopelessly overengineered I adjusted the trajectory to capture into a high Kerbin orbit with the remaining nuclear fuel.

Since I had ran out of things to do I thought it would be fun to capture another asteroid.

To shake things up a bit I parked the rock around the Mun because i saw an opportunity while making the maneuver node.

Kathmin takes a step outside to inspect a Cactus.

[Eclipse 32]

i flew a jet plane to space.

then bailed Val at 2.5 Km and ~700 m/s to avoid crashing into the ocean.

[AlamoVampire]

did some more missions to both the mun and to minmus for some science. I am slowly unlocking the tech tree, but something just irritated me to no end. WHEN did the monolith by the KSC lose its own biome status???? I swear it was considered its own biome for science purposes. I just flung Bob at it with a light scanner arm and to my utter irritation after spending far too long trying to fling a rocket at it found that i cannot scan it, and being right NEXT to it is considered the shores???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? An hour of effort for NOTHING gained at that stupid monolith.

054001282025

[dok_377]

3 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

did some more missions to both the mun and to minmus for some science. I am slowly unlocking the tech tree, but something just irritated me to no end. WHEN did the monolith by the KSC lose its own biome status???? I swear it was considered its own biome for science purposes. I just flung Bob at it with a light scanner arm and to my utter irritation after spending far too long trying to fling a rocket at it found that i cannot scan it, and being right NEXT to it is considered the shores???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? An hour of effort for NOTHING gained at that stupid monolith.

054001282025

Monoliths were never scannable to begin with. And also I don't think it had a biome either. At least I never heard anything about it. 

[Eclipse 32]

i was attempting to launch a duna relay network, when the rocket spontaneously combusted. now i have relays scattered about the KSC. somehow managed to land one on top of R&D

does anyone know of a mod that adds aircraft autopilot(like holding patterns, waypoints, ect) that has CKAN support? i was going to do BDA but my CKAN is being tetchy and not letting me install mods that have craft(that i have downloaded before). i'm attempting to troubleshoot, but no dice yet. 

[Kimera Industries]

@Eclipse 32 Atmospheric Autopilot is one I know, but I've never used it so I don't know if it can do what you're asking for. One solution is to use Physics Range Extender to make the physics range big, have one plane fly across it and you land your other plane before the plane in the air reaches the end of the physics range, then you switch back to the one in the air and land it.

Today in KSP, the game exited the VAB without dying! I think I know how I did it, so I'll test that further. In other news, Kronal Vessel Viewer seems to be the one making the VAB transparent and flooding the KSC (source: I tried using it and my computer froze and then that stuff happened), so it's gone now.

[Eclipse 32]

i'm warping to a duna transfer, and my base on duna decided to go be landed while orbiting a random point outside of Ike's orbit. KSP is weird.

Just now, Kimera Industries said:

@Eclipse 32 Atmospheric Autopilot is one I know, but I've never used it so I don't know if it can do what you're asking for. One solution is to use Physics Range Extender to make the physics range big, have one plane fly across it and you land your other plane before the plane in the air reaches the end of the physics range, then you switch back to the one in the air and land it.

Today in KSP, the game exited the VAB without dying! I think I know how I did it, so I'll test that further. In other news, Kronal Vessel Viewer seems to be the one making the VAB transparent and flooding the KSC (source: I tried using it and my computer froze and then that stuff happened), so it's gone now.

i'm not trying to land things on other things, i just want something better than MJs aircraft autopilot.

looking at the base for longer, it appears to be shimmying around duna. what?

[ColdJ]

5 minutes ago, Eclipse 32 said:

i'm not trying to land things on other things, i just want something better than MJs aircraft autopilot.

https://spacedock.info/kerbal-space-program/search?query=autopilot

[Eclipse 32]

i'm putting so many comm relays around duna it'll be hazardous to take off or land XD and sure, a number of them have been shot out of Duna by ike, but meh.

[Eclipse 32]

roving on duna is fun(and bouncy)!

[Duke MelTdoWn]

2 hours ago, Eclipse 32 said:

i'm putting so many comm relays around duna it'll be hazardous to take off or land XD and sure, a number of them have been shot out of Duna by ike, but meh.

I use this tool to calculate the orbit for the parent craft that will release the Relays:
https://meyerweb.com/eric/ksp/resonant-orbits/
With this, you can release 3 Relays into an equatorial orbit where they will form a triangle. This will give you permanent coverage. If you want super coverage of the poles you can release another 3 Relays into polar orbit.

This Relay Carrier is exactly built for this: Phaethon (plus Survey Sat meant for polar orbit).

Edited 3 hours ago by Duke MelTdoWn

[Eclipse 32]

32 minutes ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

I use this tool to calculate the orbit for the parent craft that will release the Relays:
https://meyerweb.com/eric/ksp/resonant-orbits/
With this, you can release 3 Relays into an equatorial orbit where they will form a triangle. This will give you permanent coverage. If you want super coverage of the poles you can release another 3 Relays into polar orbit.

This Relay Carrier is exactly built for this: Phaethon (plus Survey Sat meant for polar orbit).

i could use that, or i could brute force it by dumping buckets of relays in orbit. i have ADHD, so i prefer the second option.