What did you do in KSP1 today?

[AlamoVampire]

did another minmus mission earlier, the same one that sparked the question in my thread stupid eva construction question, when this happened on my way to minmus  

shortly after seeing that eclipse, Bob did an EVA and found himself gawking at the KSC down below him!

After gazing at the KSC for a moment, Bob grabbed the science he was outside getting before gawking at the KSC and returned inside to continue his trip to Minmus with Bill and Jeb. About half way to Minmus, the guys got a treat and rock paper scissored to go outside to gawk at a beautiful sight of the Mun and Minmus flanking Kerbol.

The guys made it to Minmus, grabbed some peaceful samples, left some peaceful science experiments next to a giant Olivine formation, and Bob decided to once again be a goofball and do this:

After doing a rather high and graceful flip, the gymnast scientist got back into Minmus 3 <third gen Minmus ship> and went back to Kerbin. 054102042025 new page!

Ok, rather than make a new post, I will just add to this one. The mission you see above is part of what got me to what I was just doing which will be below lol. I unlocked the large 2.5m probe core and battery thanks to the above mission and some science farming on Station 1 along with multiple missions prior to the above. I was working for those 2 items to start rebuilding my Relay Network. I borrowed the design for the relay from my prime save and built it again in my science save. I also built a Delta IV Heavy inspired lifter that, lets be honest, is OVERKILL for this thing for a 500km orbit. I have 4 of this new relay up at about 500km doing 1 orbit every 1 hour 4 minutes and 10 seconds. If what I understand and have been re-informed of on why my geostationary  relays keep wandering, that if I have them locked into the same period they should stay as I have them. 1-3 were simple enough to lift into their places, but number 4, because at 500km 3 are kinda hard for me at least to space right so they all see each other, so, I use 4, but that 4th was a bear to get slotted in. Took me several attempts to place it right. Its still not perfect, but, all 4 are in temporal lock step and can link a ring around Kerbin, so, Im saying thats good enough lol.

Gen 4 Comm Net Satellite 1 <all 4 are identical> pictured here on the pad.

Climbing to cruising err orbital altitude . This was the only one to get a full daylight ride to circularization. The rest spent time on the night side of the planet.

I am frankly not sure which of the 4 this one is, and I JUST took this picture not 3 minutes ago ROFL. But, this is the 4th Generation Comm Net Relay satellite in its 1h4m10s orbit at 500km or there abouts. Gotta say, I am NOT looking forward to punting 3-4 of these into geostationary. Higher one goes, the rougher the time it seems on getting good spacing. 

Since I mentioned it, here is Station 1 with its modular science ship docked. Again, its not much of a station, but, hey, its getting the job done right? 071802042025

Edited Tuesday at 01:18 PM by AlamoVampire

[FTLparachute]

Just built my first functional submarine in this game, today I used it to successfully get science from the seafloors of Crater Bay, Sagen Sea and Shallows on Laythe.

Edited Tuesday at 09:34 PM by FTLparachute

[Scarecrow71]

Wish I would have taken pictures, but...

Every once in a while I go through old saves and try to refamiliarize myself with what's going on there.  I do this because it helps me to fine-tune things I can improve at, while learning new skills without messing up the important saves I have.  I've got like 30ish older saves of career games I'll never actually do anything with, and 3 saves that I flip between that I consider important.  Each of those important saves are career games where I want to do something different with each one (one will end when I do a Jool-5, one will end when I land on and return from Eve, and the third is "build a space station so big that it could double as a planet").

Anyhow, this morning I opened one of the older saves, and it was pretty early career.  I start looking through it to see what's up, and I realize that I still hadn't gotten credit in Mission Control for docking on/around Kerbin.  And then I saw a contract there to rescue Gememone Kerman from orbit of Kerbin.  And my mind went "Hey, we could pull this off;  we can do this through EVA construction!".  So I accepted all the contracts (3 in total; 2 to dock in Kerbin orbit, 1 to do the rescue), and built a craft to go up there.  I need to point out that this save doesn't even have dual-capacity command modules, so I had to stack a Mk1 on top of the early plane cockpit, and then stack an OKTO on top of that.  Why?  Well, I needed:

• One seat for the Engineer (for EVA construction)
• One seat for Gememone (whom I'm rescuing)
• Probe core for SAS control at the very least on the way up (because Engineers can't fly by themselves, you know)

So I create this ugly thing, then stick a cargo container on top of that, complete with a docking port jr.  One on top of the craft, and one in the cargo container.  I get up into orbit, and I rendezvoused within 10 meters of Gememone's craft.  I let Bill go on EVA, then fire up EVA construction.  Take the docking port out of the cargo container, stick it on Gememone's craft...and bingo!  Docked!  All 3 contracts completed when I touched down on the grasslands.

Now, I don't really need the EVA construction practice.  I had assumed I wouldn't get close enough with the rendezvous, which would have necessitated EVA maneuvering with Bill.  And THAT I most certainly need practice with.  However, even if I didn't need the practice, it is never a bad idea to work on rocket building skills.  Take a bunch of contracts that don't look like they go together and try to cram a craft together to satisfy them.  I'll always take that kind of practice.

[Kimera Industries]

43 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Take a bunch of contracts that don't look like they go together and try to cram a craft together to satisfy them.  I'll always take that kind of practice.

I love it when they ask me to take tourists to one place, but to carrying degrees of tourism (i.e. Lisa wants a flyby, but Calzo wants a landing) because then I just do all of it at once. The sad part is that I don't get payed extra for going above and beyond what they asked me to. I could fly them on a grand tour and they'd only care if I went to the Mun, like they asked.

Edited 22 hours ago by Kimera Industries

[Eclipse 32]

i have randomly decided to attempt to make a train.

[FTLparachute]

Today I finally got a working seaplane on Laythe - the Sea Hawk. It takes off from water using Darts for lift and Rapiers to accelerate, then cruises on Wheesleys.

This means I finally have a plane that can properly science the whole of Laythe, and judging by the current dV margins can get from Crescent to Crater Bay. In other words, my Jool V attempt is go again, and I'm pretty sure that  I can not only do it, but probably get 150k+ science points in the process. Will update that thread tomorrow.

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

Tried out the newly released firefly mod! Possibly the prettiest thing I have seen ingame so far!

Decided to take one of my first SSTOs out for a fly to orbit, and it was not a disappointment!

getting some plasma!

Pretty moon shot

Plasma along the leading edge!

Toasty!

Closed cycle mode!

I think I took too many screenshots... maybe not!

One of these could be used as a wallpaper

[Pipcard]

[JAXA+] Fujin Saturn mission plan

2066-01-05 - Relay satellites arrive at Saturn's moon Titan

2066-04-16 - Another set of relays arrives at Iapetus

[AlamoVampire]

I just had a jaw dropping experience on a routine Mun mission. I was gathering science, and the mission was going smoothly for the most part. Had that odd and irritating glitch where the Off Set tool shows up randomly and refuses to go away. Only way I can find for right now, and even this has about a 45% success rate, to make this thing vanish is to open an inventory and move an item around. Hit or miss if it works. Still have not tried the change scene thing yet. But, thats NOT the jaw dropper. Not even close.

This ship, as you see it, if fully fueled <and when I did my TKI or Trans-Kerbin Injection burn, at engine ignition had 1663 m/s of dV. Enough to do the job and then some. By time I managed to convince this thing that running into the mun on our return trip was NOT wanted <I swear it kept giving me encounters with the Mun as I did the node, and I didnt see it at first> and managed to make a positive trajectory with the atmosphere at 35km above the ground, I had, and I kid you not 163m/s dV left. I was soo shocked I failed to get a picture of it. These two things in that picture conspired together to make my jaw drop. I just know it! it was the most headscratchingly funny thing to happen in recent times. A great break of the saga of spam calls, which sadly is at 230 and climbing each day... 021302062025

[Hobbesian]

Not today exactly, but within the past 24 hours. And lacking in screenshots due to my complete forgetfulness.

Launched a custom hubble-like satellite in RSS/RO using KCHS & BDB parts. Launched aboard a shuttle, however payload deployment ended in a "Return to VAB" because I forgot to add a control module to the satellite, afterwhich KSP crashed.

I also finished my custom Tiangong station by launching and docking Wentian.

[FezCool]

Continuing my obession with miners I tweaked and tested out a mining variant of an old Mk3 SSTO utilizing an ascent profile I learned from googling SSTO ascent profiles lol. It worked very well and had a substanial amount of DeltaV to get to the Mun and back with a tolerable TWR so it will definitely be placed into my frequent rotation!

Landed over the ocean unexpectedly due to the night landing and spotted what looked like a distant island that upon final approach actually turned out to be a large landmass so Kathmin claimed this territory as the new found country of Kathminland.

I also noticed an asteroid in orbit so I sent what is probably my longest rocket ever up to intercept and capture the Asteroid. Unfortunately after docking we only had 140 m/s left of Deltav and thrusting on the rock caused it to spin around violently so I settled with setting up a minmus encounter for the asteroid and deorbiting the craft so poor Razor wouldn't be stuck in orbit for monthes.

In further Mun Incursions I basically stumbled upon the Neil Armstrong Memorial by accident so of course I had to pay my respects.

What I'm probably most excited about is the newest spacestation I launched that is fully integrated with the FreeIVA mod!

I really like how this turned out it looks really and has some level of functionality. I was originally gonna send it to Moho but unfortunately I missed the transfer window by a few hours and likely don't have enough DV to capture so I'm not sure where to put it. Likely it will end up at either Dres or Jool since those are the nearest transfer windows.