What did you do in KSP1 today?

[blizzy78]

Completed my big Mun base program today. Also, released a new rendezvous tutorial plugin.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[ledogen]

school keeps getting in the way of my game, about to begin though

[Evrion]

I failed, for a FORTH TIME! to get a Kerbal to Duna.

This my ship design was WAY too wobbly during the Kerbin --> Duna burn so I aborted. Then blew up the Kerbal in atmosphere as I was a little too aggressive in getting him to land at the space center.

BUT I did get a refueling station safely on it's way to Duna.

[LameLefty]

So last night I landed the prototyp of my revised kethane miner/lander at a deposit on the edge of one of the Mun's large equatorial craters. On the descent I visually observed one of the Munar anomalies and made a point to leave my lander in place after filling up with kethane in order to serve as a landing beacon of sorts when I targeted a crewed lander visit to the anomaly. Last thing I did last evening was throw together a heavy Munar lander and put it into orbit around the Mun.

Tonight I spent ... way too long ... trying to land close to the anomaly. Turns out this one isn't just on the edge of one of the largest craters on the Mun, it's actually on the ridge between that crater and a much smaller one that almost overlaps the first. That means there is only a very small region right around the anomaly itself that's flat enough for my standard heavy lander. I guess I could have gone back to the drawing board and built something shorter and wider and hoped for the best with experimentation but hey, that's what Quicksave is for, right?

My Quicksave was about 2.5 km almost right over the anomaly. It was offset toward the inside slope of the smaller crater so I had a heck of time getting lined up right over a level-enough spot to land. I kept drifting around a bit during descent and time after time, I'd hit the ground and either gently rebound and then slide/tip over, or just set down and slowly tip over as the legs settled. Bits and pieces would begin breaking off and exploding. On one occasion, almost the entire lander exploded piece by piece as it slid and tumbled down the crater. Miraculously, on none of these failed attempts did the crew ever die. So, um, yay for Kerbal engineering I guess.

Anyway, on about the 10th attempt, I finally got down close enough to the anomaly that the ground was level(ish) and my lander is stable, within a couple hundred meters from the anomaly at most. I will EVA the crew out for the obligatory photo op tomorrow. For now, I safed all the propulsion systems so I can't fubar it all up, deployed the solar arrays and then skipped back to the Space Center and closed out my game.

That took WAY too long tonight but it was so worth it when I finally got down right where I needed to be. That's why we keep coming back to this game, isn't it?

Edited August 16, 2013 by LameLefty

[segaprophet]

I continued to put more finishing touches on some upcoming products -

Edited August 16, 2013 by segaprophet

[ChrisWill]

Well I attempted to do my first crew rotation with my space station. I did manage to succeed but when I undocked the ship with the crew returning to Kerbin I hit the abort button. Which thanks to the Kerbal parachute mod it ejects everyone, everyone except the previous commander of the space station. It also managed to make an explosion while doing it too so I'm someone who has killed lots of Kerbals attempting EVA's so this seemed impossible since they were drifting rather fast but I managed to save two the last one ran out of fuel thus ending all hope for recovery.

R.I.P Halden Kerman

Fate has ordained for you to rest among the stars forever you will be mourned by all of Kerbin.

I decide to perform the rescue mission for Halden Kerman.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited August 16, 2013 by ChrisWill
Added rescue mission photos

[Deadweasel]

Well I attempted to do my first crew rotation with my space station. I did manage to succeed but when I undocked the ship with the crew returning to Kerbin I hit the abort button. Which thanks to the Kerbal parachute mod it ejects everyone, everyone except the previous commander of the space station. It also managed to make an explosion while doing it too so I'm someone who has killed lots of Kerbals attempting EVA's so this seemed impossible since they were drifting rather fast but I managed to save two the last one ran out of fuel thus ending all hope for recovery.

R.I.P Halden Kerman

Fate has ordained for you to rest among the stars forever you will be mourned by all of Kerbin.

You should totally send up a rescue mission for the poor little dude.

[regex]

You should totally send up a rescue mission for the poor little dude.

Nah, rename him Talby and let him float out there forever.

[regex]

Designed and launched a mission to Dres. Vehicle was 811 tons on the pad, one of my heaviest launches and definitely straining my laptop at over 400 parts, and it put a 91-ton transfer vehicle carrying a two-stage lander and a CSM with a crew module ready for Kerbin reentry on return. Apollo style! The launch vehicle even left an engine on the pad but still managed to get the payload to a 200km x 200km parking orbit.

I love the inline Procedural Fairings, they look great.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[katesp]

I managed to mindlessly slam a rocket taking off into one in orbit. Never thought the odds were against me.

[tntristan12]

Today was a busy day for me in KSP. I put down my fuel storage depot at Jebediah's Badlands (the name for the site of my Kethane base), and then invented and landed my KAS Kit (a rover with retracting sides that open to reveal a suite of KAS connector ports and two winches to use them), then I sent a fuel buggy to the Mun using my skycrane as the primary booster.

Since the fuel buggy was so heavy I barely had enough fuel to make it into orbit around the Mun, so I had to dock it with my orbital station around the Mun. Mun Station 1 as I'm calling it, is a collection of three nuclear tugs that were docked and used on the fuel depot mission. Since they had more than half of their fuel remaining, instead of deorbiting them, I deactivated the engines and repurposed it as an orbital refueling platform.

Anyway, the boosters contained quantum struts to secure their load when in flight. When I docked the fuel buggy to the station, the struts activated but the docking ports weren't completely flush. When I quickloaded, the station snapped momentarily to a flush position then back again and the whole thing exploded into a million pieces! Since it was a bug of the game and not through any fault of my own, I didn't feel bad about deactivating the quantum struts via save file editing. That fixed the problem. I undocked the fuel buggy and landed it safely at the Badlands.

[Horn Brain]

Landed a solar plane at my Duna base. It's called SPARTACUS (Solar-Powered Aerial Rover Transport and Cabin for Unlimited Stay), and I think I overdid it with the solar panels. It can use the bigger FireSpitter electric propeller at full power as long as the sun is kind of overhead. I think this design could even work at Laythe. This design was tested on Kerbin and can land at about 2km altitude on Duna at less than 50 m/s (uses reverse thrust for easy landings). It's very maneuverable and easy to fly. The only drawback is I don't think it's light enough to fly over 5 km or so, which limits its range to the lower areas (though it can be used as a normal rover higher up possibly). Except for the solar panels, it's probably about as light as I can make it and still satisfy my requirements:

1.) Can land at less than 60 m/s on Duna at the altitude of my base.

2.) Very stable and safe flight (this is subjective, but I have no problems controlling it whatsoever).

3.) Maneuverable enough to abort landings quickly and avoid terrain obstacles.

4.) Sturdy, stable landing gear to survive tough landings (The last thing I need is a broken airplane miles from my base).

5.) Carries two Kerbals in an enclosed cabin (I want them to be able to camp in the aircraft if they have to wait through the night for more solar power).

6.) Enough batteries to allow emergency landings if I forget what I'm doing and fly behind a mountain at dusk or something.

What do you think?

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[magnemoe]

Preparation for an second grand tour.

Ground test of the Eve lander, does the ladders work?

Uses the 9 of the new 48-7S 20kN engine and the FL-T100 tank with 45 liter fuel in asparagus, the 48-7S har far better isp than the 24-77.

The two top 90 liter tanks are mainly for deorbiting, but rest fuel will be spent during liftoff.

Ant and oscar for upper circulation stage, uses ladder instead of seat to save weight.

[Tw1]

I launched this.

Repeatedly, until it didn't blow up.

Then, I landed this:

Repeatedly, until it landed it the right spot and didn't crash.

But, after many hours, I now have a huge depot for rocket parts.

Jeb was pretty happy with it.

Also, discussed an idea for a simple Railways Mod.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Tw1

[capi3101]

Worked on a new asparagus booster design for the Barn Burner Superheavy 7. Might've worked if I'd used BZ-52s instead of Tail Connectors to hook up the booster engines; damn things exploded every time I staged one of them, sometimes taking out an adjacent booster in the process. Had one just come apart through normal flight stress...didn't even make it to the first staging event. Needless to say I'll be reworking that design; the numbers say it should've worked. Checking the wiki this morning, it also looks like I would've saved a fair amount of weight in the process if I'd just used the -52s like I originally planned. No, I had to go for "cool-looking"...

Started setting up an ILS system for the KSC's runway. Started by putting a Hellhound rover just off the west end of the runway, then followed it up by putting one just off the east end; both aligned with the center of the runway (it's 2.5 kilometers long, for those who were curious). Using those two initial rovers as reference points, I put another rover 1 kilometer away from the west end of the runway, and another one five kilometers from the west end. Redesignated each one as a base; called them "Meatball" followed by their distance to the runway. I have plans to add two more markers at a minimum, at ten and 25 kilometers. I did go ahead and try to use the system with pheesh's Dralthi-II design. I at least got the thing aligned with the runway...if I'd had the right glide slope, I might've done a proper landing in lieu of a proper lithobrake.

Made substantial progress on KCP's design. Updates here.

[RoboRay]

FWI, flags make great runway end markers and approach line-up cues. I normally plant a line of them heading west toward the mountains, right on the runway centerline.

[TomcatMVD]

I managed to put together my first "Apollo style" Mün landing. It is such a thrill to have everything work out as expected, specially for someone who keeps struggling with rocket building. The rocket performed well enough although I should have a third stage in it, so as to avoid wasting fuel from my service and lander modules. The dockings went pretty good, I even had to dock more times than planned because when I detached from the service module, I realized it was better to undock while it was behind the SM, since it was supposed to then start burning retrograde, so I docked again, turned around, and detached once again. Everything went silk smooth up until the reinsertion burn, which was only possible thanks to my copious amounts of monopropellant, otherwise my trustworthy 3 man crew would be stranded around Kerbin on an elliptical orbit with a Pe in excess of 3,000,000mts.

[AncientAstronaut]

Made 1000c, effectively traveling significantly through time.

[NGTOne]

Made 1000c, effectively traveling significantly through time.

How?

(10char)

[korntipton]

Created an Apollo mission to mun with a Columbia docking and all.. but I forgot Electricity on the first mission .. second mission.. NO Solar panels.. 3rd mission, not enough Monopropellent to dock back to Columbia withing 18.3 meters . Been a very frustrating mission but I've had a lot of fun doing it.

[capi3101]

FWI, flags make great runway end markers and approach line-up cues. I normally plant a line of them heading west toward the mountains, right on the runway centerline.

Flags would've been my first choice as well, but mine have a tendency to sink into the ground and spontaneously explode in the vicinity of KSC for some reason.

No kidding - one time I got Jeb out of a Port-A-John 7, had him walk off the launchpad (he immediately sank into the ground up to his waist) and attempt to plant a flag; it exploded in his hand like a Black Cat. That was a hell of a walk...and it was the last time I didn't set out a rover to go pick him up before I put the Port-A-John on the launchpad.

[TomcatMVD]

Created an Apollo mission to mun with a Columbia docking and all.. but I forgot Electricity on the first mission .. second mission.. NO Solar panels.. 3rd mission, not enough Monopropellent to dock back to Columbia withing 18.3 meters . Been a very frustrating mission but I've had a lot of fun doing it.

I loaded 100% of my monopropellant on the service module, and used the lander only up until rendezvous, then the SM docked onto the lander module.

[Superfluous J]

I sent 5 rovers to Mun. Even landed one, in spite of some serious design flaws.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Van Disaster]

Bunged some stuff in a fresh install, built a station out of it, attached newly fixed cameras all over it, set them up in action groups. Stuck it in orbit, hooked a video streamer up to the game, and spent a while flipping round the cameras remotely via Telemachus while watching the video feed on my laptop. Superb use of resources, I have to say.

Views from various places which stay fixed relative to the model rather than the universe:

Apart from this one, which rotates with the end of the station - yes it's a big rotatey station part.

Thoroughly impractical as a station, but looks fun. If you feel like watching it orbit a planet ( yes, thoroughly exciting ) it seems the feed I was using for testing got saved for 48 hrs. http://justin.tv/vandisaster/b/446691634

Edited August 16, 2013 by Van Disaster

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Continued the assembly of my Laythe colony ship