What did you do in KSP1 today?

[zeppelinmage]

Yesterday was all about experimenting with asparagus staging. Today I launched and assembled a manned Duna explorer.

[Roastduck]

Yesterday was all about experimenting with asparagus staging. Today I launched and assembled a manned Duna explorer.

my first experiment with asparagus staging ended up with a Stayputnik on trajectory out of the solar system....

[zeppelinmage]

my first experiment with asparagus staging ended up with a Stayputnik on trajectory out of the solar system....

haha, yeah, you can get some ridiculous delta-v with light loads. My loads were >50t, so not as much.

[DexterBelgium]

Figured out, with the help of the aerobraking calculator, an aerobrake that not only slowed Jeb in his first ever manned Duna mission down upon meeting Duna without a single burn, but, even more awesomely, slung him around Ike and deposited him on a nice trajectory towards the surface of Duna with very minimal rocket fuel usage. I now have massive amounts of delta-v in my transfer/get into orbit stage. Eeeh well, dumping a big load of rocket fuel, oxidizer and a nuclear engine to jumpstart it all shouldn't harm anything, amirite?

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By far the most badass thing I did in KSP so far.

[tntristan12]

I buttressed the corners to my in-construction fuel depot, Halcyon Point! This was quite possibly one of the most frivolous, unnecessary, and awkward missions I've ever undertaken, but the results look pretty cool.

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Yes, I am going to repeat this procedure for the other side. But first, sleep! Goodnight.

Edited December 28, 2013 by tntristan12

[Aragosnat]

Well yestarday. Flew around Kerbin collecting science points with a basic Jet plane. Maxed out a fair portion of the tech Tree with just staying within Kerbin with only a few going out of the atmoshpere.

[Dogface]

[ToteBaggs]

I figured out a way to get my bike over the mountains. I now use this to jump islands on Laythe.

http://i.imgur.com/NsQOhyn.jpg

[lajoswinkler]

I found this thing, completely unaware of its existence.

I had no idea what that was, but it looked like it might be a monolith, so I went there with a lander prepared for Duna.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I had my first trip to Laythe. Check the full occurence in Part 2 of Project Genesis!

I found this thing, completely unaware of its existence.

I had no idea what that was, but it looked like it might be a monolith, so I went there with a lander prepared for Duna.

Congratulations, you have just discovered one of KSP's easter eggs!

[Roastduck]

Today's agenda is to clean out my saved ships. I'm keeping payloads as ship saves, and saving launch platforms as sub-assemblies.

I also just downloaded Kethane, so I'm designing scanner satellites. Might put some in synchronous orbits around Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus tonight.

[plastik]

I completed my first landing on Eve (unmanned, I don't fancy stranding a Kerbal there). Pretty straightforward; I just modified my manned Duna launcher and ended up with plenty of DV to spare. First pass was a moderate aerobraking procedure which put me into orbit after raising the periapsis, and finally I selected a landing spot and braked for a steep re-entry. The atmosphere is crazy thick so I slowed down plenty, and as it turns out, three chutes was a bit overkill. Sent some data back after landing and deployed the rover for some exploration. No chance of a return, just a good 'ol probing mission.

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I should also mention, this was Eve Explorer 1A; 1B, which was identical sadly ran out of power on the far side of Eve and I had failed to deploy the main solar panels. The only remaining panels are on the rover, but they weren't facing the Sun for many weeks or months later and frustratingly I had no way to rotate the craft, so it just scraped Eve's atmosphere before heading off into a pointless orbit around Kerbol. It has loads of fuel so I'll send it elsewhere someday. I launched them both about 6 hours apart or so from Kerbin, aiming for a dual landing on different parts of the planet.

Edited December 28, 2013 by plastik

[Roastduck]

Put my first station into orbit!

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[Sylon00]

A picturesque takeoff on my first ever trip to Duna. This ship will send my mini rover, named the Microver I, to hopefully land on Duna's surface for the first time. This is the same ship I used to put Kerbals on Mün and Minmus.

It took all night to figure out Duna's transfer window, even with MechJeb's help. Eventually I figured out an easy way to get to there and Eve.

I severely underestimated Duna's thin atmosphere, and landed a little too hard. My rover bounced and landed on its side. Mission over

So, not to be discouraged, I decided to go somewhere else. This is my first trip to Eve.

I like Eve's atmosphere a lot better than Duna's.

Touchdown, mission successful!

It was on a slope, and as the rover was rolling and eventually the solar panels ripped off. So, the rover itself is dead, but I still think the mission was successful.

[Tripod27]

Decided to use the near future tech mod to visit as many planets as I can, except that mod has BIG parts and generally you have to use a lot of them

I was sending a few probes up to the interplanetary section that already has the lander attached, when I noticed that I have about 500 parts on screen, and even my pretty damn expensive computer (I'd rather not say exactly how much ) custom built for the 3d rendering I do at college dropped below 20 fps (as a comparison I get over 240 fps on Warthunder on completely maxed settings)

(Rest are links because I can't put them in a spoiler or something)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42951400/KSP/screenshot8.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42951400/KSP/screenshot9.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42951400/KSP/screenshot10.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42951400/KSP/screenshot11.png

the best part is I still have to send up two more probes when I'm done as well, which would equal about 650 parts on screen during the docking procedure... I should have bought an even more expensive computer, it's not like I really NEED a car right?

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Seems like I'm not the first to send and land an Eve rover!

Meet Trekker 3, a rover with a female artificial intelligence, launched from Duna!

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Edited December 29, 2013 by Commissioner Tadpole

[Tripod27]

built a ship to push the planet to a new orbit, how'd I do?

[astropapi1]

Aww yis.

[Liowen]

Made a third sandbox save, I will delete it soon though, to build and launch a lander to Mun and back. I was trying to see how fast I could go from design to launch without anything blowing up, it did amazing well untill the return trip home...

Though you might not be able to tell, there is a command pod in front of those mountains...

After much rolling around, and the parachute coming off after landing, I finally managed to come to a stop... and had Jeb get out for this picture.

I may make a tutorial on how I get to Mun and back at some point, but I know I am by far no expert at doing so.

[theonegalen]

After sending two probes to Duna, one which orbited, then returned to Kerbin with the sweet, sweet Science, and a lander which beamed back interesting atmospheric data, my current objective is to put science stations in orbit around the Mun and Minmus.

I launched the first station today, then crewed it with the first launch of my Block II Starbuck CSM - the Starbuck IX mission carrying our three intrepid Prime Crew. I used the maneuver node system to set up the rendezvous, and it was the most beautiful one I'd ever saw - zeroed velocity less than 150m from the station. Jeb EVA'd over to the station to take control, then Bill and Bob docked with the station. We transferred the remainder of Starbuck IX's second stage and Service Module fuel over to the station's second stage, which will eventually perform the Trans-Munar Injection burn.

Jeb then deorbited the whole Starbuck IX stack to clear the orbit. It was after re-entry, when everyone felt Jeb was safe, that disaster struck. A heretofore unknown design flaw in the Block II Starbuck command module caused the parachutes to rip the spacecraft in half. The last words we ever heard from the legendary Jebediah were, "Hmm, there seems to be a problem here..." before the crew cabin plunged deep into Kerbin's oceans and was destroyed. The only comfort is that death must have been quick for him who liked everything fast. But Kerbin has lost it's greatest space pioneer.

All launches have been put on hold, both to mourn our pioneer's death and to redesign the Starbuck Capsule. But we have resolved that Jeb's sacrifice will not be in vain. We will complete the vision of science stations around both our natural satellites, and we will go beyond, to Moho, to Dres, with launch windows opening in twelve days, and even further as good Kerbol permits.

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The other interesting thing I did today was use an unmanned probe/tug I originally built to deorbit my old space station to deorbit a piece of debris without docking. Just pushed up next to the piece of debris and slowed it down enough to enter the atmosphere before returning the tug to stable orbit. I was really happy with that.

[zeppelinmage]

I'm not content to simply warp until launch windows, so today I began another project. The Munar X Exploration Program is aiming to collect samples and SCIENCE from as many Munar biomes as possible. The first mission ended up landing in the Farside Crater. Upon return to Kerbin, the mission netted over 600 science. Not bad for 18h (Kerbin time) worth of work.

Bill Kerman contemplates his rather precarious landing position while Kerbol sets behind a ridge in the background. One can only feel how unimaginably huge the universe is when both Kerbin and Kerbol are hidden from view. A brief philosophical moment from a Kerbal.

[Tuareg]

uninstalled...

[Major "zubb" Tom]

This was last night but close enough.

I did my first ever rendezvous manualy and even connected the two ships with a pipe from kas.

This was difficult because I had to eva while the ships were drifting around but I did it.

While I was out trying to find the magnet clamp thing and the end of the cable from the winch I look back to see the two ships occilating in one of kerbals increasing ocilation death spirals.

You know jigs back and forth for no reason. It ripped in half after I got back in using timewarp to stop it temporaryily.

I didn't think to get pictures until after I had put both into a deorbit path.

I am going to uninstall kas until I learn to use docking ports.

Good times.

[FlamedSteak]

This is not the most difficult or impressive, but it's definitely the coolest thing I've put together in KSP so far.

There is a Kethane miner on the surface which will rendezvous with the station when the fuel supply gets low. Though the amount I'm using it's doubtful if I'll ever need it.

The size and low gravity of Minmus makes this the best way to visit all the biomes rather than running multiple missions from Kerbin.

I had forgotten how ridiculously quick and easy rendezvous are around a low gravity body.

I'm going to replace the science lander with a manned capsule, the lack of surface samples and crew reports is certainly making progress a little slower than it should be (Bill isn't doing much in the habitation module anyway)

[Duke23]

Last night after my successes the day before with my Eve probe and almost success with my Duna probe, I decided it was high time to mount a manned mission. I dubbed them ISM-1 and ISM-2 respectively (Interplanetary Suicide Mission, because the Eve mission was most certainly one-way and I wasn't feeling too sure about the Duna one). Gregmund Kerman bravely volunteered to go to Eve knowing full well that he wouldn't make it back and the chances of rescue were minimal. This was my first manned ship to use my newly acquired nuclear engines and ion propulsion. This mission actually went TOO well at one point, I fiddled around with maneuver nodes until it was pretty darn close and I had PLANNED to orbit a few times and take a look at what was down there then pick a general area to land. What actually happened is I accidentally set my trajectory for a high speed Eve intercept and by the time I realized it my engine wasn't powerful enough to correct it in time. Not to be deterred, I burned off as much speed as I could and separated my command module with science equipment while entering the atmosphere. The landing went mostly smooth except that on impact 2 of my 4 solar arrays were knocked off because I landed on a small hill and they were too close to the bottom of the craft which didn't have landing legs.

(insert extremely zoomed out screenshot here)

My Duna mission however was more thought out and for the most part it went exactly according to plan. I had a young and dumb recruit lined up to pilot this mission who thought he could make it there and back successfully even though we told him it'd be a real stretch. Plot twist happens when Bill decides to sneak into the lander when no one was looking and kick the newbie out, and no one noticed until the ship was halfway to Duna. The bad part came when I was passing too close and fast (I think?) to Duna and instead of doing a smooth transition to orbit I was forced to burn up the remaining fuel just to keep from going on an escape path. Then I was in an extremely elliptical orbit and I switched on the ion drive until it was reasonable to aerobrake. I had planned for the thin atmosphere by packing 3 Rockomax 24-77s to thrust just before touchdown, but I wasn't sure exactly what I was dealing with so the fuel and engine size was an educated guess. It was quite a nailbiting experience watching the planet flying towards me and praying the altimeter was wrong while waiting on my chute to deploy. When it did I burned retro until I was coming straight down at about 13-15m/s and then was able to set the lander down gently at about 3m/s with the help of the engines (on my third try, mind you. There were a couple minor disasters that were avoided with a quickload). There is a slight possibility that this ship could return home on ion power after (hopefully) getting into a low orbit with the engines I included, but I'm not brave enough to try it yet. A rescue mission is certainly feasible though with the tech I have now.

Between those two missions' transmitted data I was able to get new tech I needed. Now I must go back to work on my current project -- a jet powered booster stage. Tested the prototype last night and it did surprisingly well until the engines flamed out asymmetrically around 14km and I went for a spin. If that starts to seem hopeless I also have an SSTO design in my head I'd like to prototype.