What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Lucy1nTheSky]

The way you set up the engines confused me at first XD. I had to look at it for a while to understand what was going on. http://i.imgur.com/olsibn8.png I'm totally OCD about fuel efficiency, so I will point out that you could return from almost anywhere in the whole kirbin system by landing the mass of just those two nuclear engines =P

That was kind of the idea. i wanted to see If i could land a ship that big on the mun first because I've got a Jool window coming up soon and I'd like to be able to land on all the moons without sending all of Kerbin's fuel reserves into space xD. If i can get a miner over there, and a refueler which i'm designing right now, then it seems very doable.

[Tripzter]

Well since I did this at 4am so thats still "today"

Few weeks ago i sent out a rocket to Moho. Did not expect it to be this big of a pain in the butt. Ran out of fuel just as i landed the craft.

So after that i sent out another rocket with a lot more fuel.. Landed that one picked up the kerbal, took some soil samples, goo experiments etc. Took off, had just enough fuel to get out of orbit so that was also a bust.

Few days ago I started building a craft with 5 orange tanks. Went back, docked with the other craft, brought both back to kerbin.

Got almost 1300 science out of both crafts. One took samples on the surface, other took samples in orbit.

[Tripzter]

Today I learnt how to use Mechjeb and I love it.

I can already dock and I've been experimenting with it to semi-automate routine tasks such as refuelling my space station and sending up replacement crew.

Just wait till you learn how to dock on ur own without Mechjeb. A lot more satisfying.

[Monkeh]

Today I gave Jeb some time off to rest. Not sure he enjoyed it to be honest!

[kalor]

Today, I started my first steps in aerobraking. Just Kerbin right now, and only semi-successful. Had I been using deadly re-entry, I'd need a few more Kerbals. My best result on a planned approach (dumped the engine stage, to make it a complete aerobrake) was ~1K m/s at 27K meters... still got re-entry flames, but I was okay with that. Took 4 passes to complete, and was a "live" experiment, as I had a lot of science on board, returning from a Munar flyby. Next time, I may set up a bit more shallow, and see if I can do a complete landing with no flames

[kelmv]

Just wait till you learn how to dock on ur own without Mechjeb. A lot more satisfying.

++. Mechjeb is great for removing some of the tedium from flying (like circularizing your 20th flight for the day), but there are some things that it is just so much better to do by hand, like landing.

[Jank]

I did my second manual rendezvous, (don't think MechJeb is for me), and thus created my first true Space Station!

[Xacktar]

I found out that solar panels have some interesting properties when used as landing gear.

Perfect stuff for a video.

[panfish5]

Started to use the real solar system mod.

Landed something on duna. It was suppose to be an orbiter but I screwed up the aerobrake and landed it.

I didnt even notice I had kerbal engineer on the probe until I took this shot .

I put up my sky can station.

Aaand I have been trying to make a shuttle but its not going well.

[lordlundar]

Ribbon padding Day!

On my list was

Kerbin:

-land travel

-flight

-overwatch

-challenge

Minmus

-Polar orbit

So here we go!

-my land vehicle (lost the jet engine 5 km in but I got it to 35 km before it fell apart.

-My plane for flight. Got it back to base after flying it to the grasslands.

-My overwatch satellite

-My challenge (aka SSTO) satellite. (Hey! No one said it had to be a space plane!)

And finally my Minmus polar satellite

[Deadweasel]

Performed some final maneuverability and stability flight tests with HSCC-102 Whitefang...

...which involved extreme maneuvers using various wing geometry modes

Testing completed, it was time for a mainline mission, using HSCC-102S (SAR variant, featuring twin external seats for crew recovery ops). IPEV Voyager -currently deployed to Moho- was relaying mayday calls from the crashed Labrador lander's crew.

Arriving at the system, Whitefang made quick and easy work of the landing, taking up a parking space a few dozen meters from the stranded crew's erstwhile shelter. Doodbro and Bill were certainly glad to see those powerful spotlights dropping down nearby!

Bill takes a moment to appreciate one last Moho sunrise before assuming one of the rescue seats

Everybody aboard and secured, Whitefang rose easily from the ground, oriented itself with Voyager's orbit overhead, and blasted heavenward

An hour later, Bill and Doodbro were safely aboard Voyager with Whitefang stationed nearby, awaiting their window to return to Kerbin.

[Jank]

Crafted an orbital fuel/kerbal resupply craft and refueled (mostly) my KSS Space Station as a test.

The only thing that went wrong was loss of power during sunset re-entry, despite having panels out - I guess I made an unwise dramatic ASAS move or something, next thing you know I was out of power, gyrating wildly, and it wasn't regenerating for some reason, which prevented me from separating my crew module from the main body and resulted in a crash. Fortunately it was an unmanned test, so no lives were lost.

Subsequent modification included addition of two RTGs to the sides of the lander can, hopefully that will keep it from happening again.

[kelmv]

Found out my SCANSat mapping probe couldn't fly on it's own. Seems some part clipping occured and my little sub-one-ton probe couldn't finalize it's own orbit. And it was such a cute little thing, too.

[problemecium]

Built and test-flew this monster:

It has a launch mass of 1,010 tons and is orbit-capable, as shown in the pictures. No hacks! All stock! Now to think of something awesome to launch with it.

EDIT: Incidentally I should let it be known that I never actually used those LV-Ns... they were just decoration xP It was only a test flight after all.

Edited February 3, 2014 by parameciumkid
bigger images

[Jouni]

I started building an interplanetary cargo ship. So far I have only launched the core module, the neck/bridge module, and a utility tug, but I'm already starting to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

Launching the core module went fine, as it was a solid piece of equipment on my most reliable lifter. Due to the light payload, the lifter had a lot of fuel left after reaching 130 km orbit, so I decided to keep it attached for the moment.

The neck was a completely different matter. Somewhere around TWR 2.5, it started behaving like a pendulum and eventually broke free from the lifter. After a few failed launches, I finally managed to build a suitably weak and stable lifter, and got the neck into orbit. Pushing the neck into the forward docking port of the core module with a small utility tug was an interesting experience. Visual docking would have been pretty much impossible, but with the information provided by Docking Port Alignment Indicator, I eventually learned to compensate for the horrible RCS imbalance. Encouraged by that, I decided to intercept the lifter and pull it to the construction site with the utility tug. With the fuel salvaged from the lifter, I now have a full orange tank worth of spare fuel waiting for the thruster modules.

This is what the construction site looks at the moment:

The ship is going to receive its thrusters next, after which it's time to start designing the payload for the Laythe colonization mission. With three thruster modules, the ship should be able to haul 150-200 tonnes there and still have enough fuel to support landing operations. At least assuming that the neck starts behaving better than it has behaved so far.

[Commissar]

designing and testing more base modules. also built and tested a 5-ton capacity mobile tower crane for assembling the power station modules for my bases.

initially, I was just going to make the whole module one piece, but realized that it was far too tall for any of my existing movers, so I made it in two sections, with the lower portion (7-8 tons) consisting of 20 2.5m stack batteries, landing legs, chutes, and a 2.5-1.25m adapter; fits my large module transporter. upper portion is actually really light, just the balka solar wings, 2 balka truss segments, struc. fuselage, and parachutes; will be towed to the base.

probably gonna try out some of the docking clamps from kosmos on this.

so, I first tried the obvious, a massive tower crane, but that wouldn't move, then went to the conventional telescoping boom, where i ran into the spaghetti joint problem. ended up doing a hybrid, with a shorter tower, on a conventional large-rover base, and a shorter telescoping boom. still has some joint flex, but not enough to be problematic with the fairly light loads it is intended for.

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[Geschosskopf]

Today it totally stormed until quite recently (I think we got about 3" of rain) so nothing to do but play KSP all day. Scanning both Laythe and Vall for kethane took a fair amount of time but I still had plenty left over for getting a 7-ship flotilla to Duna (1 was already there)

Then I docked 3 of them together to make an extremely impractical science station, which I was kinda proud of until I saw Jouni's even bigger version a few posts above. Twisted minds must think alike

[capi3101]

Built my docking target for the Auk VI, launched it, performed docking ops. Successfully delivered the fuel load to the target, but I guess I should've checked what off-loading would do to its center of mass while I was still in the hangar. Lost control over it during re-entry and was never able to recover.

Decided to try again with the Auk VII. Same problem cropped up - going to try to figure out what I can do about it at this point.

[Tiakatt]

Tonight I started my first actual science base, on Minmus. It is the Kirmin Kerman Minmus Science Base, in honor of the first Kerbal on Minmus.

Here is the crew watching their first Kerbinrise and Sunrise together.

Limiting an engine's max throttle is amazingly helpful for hovering across low gravity worlds, much more precise control, I like it. This was the end of a kilometer of hovering at 5-8 meters altitude and less than 1 m/s, with the tiny LV-909 engine capped at somewhere around 12.5% max thrust. I realized during this long hovering process that I forgot to add a ladder to that habitat. Oops. At least the lab itself has one.

This is a rover docking test, my very first use of a docking port! This is the next thing which will be sent up there. I suspect using this first rover on Minmus is going to be...uh, interesting. Poor Kerbals.

[Jank]

Built my docking target for the Auk VI, launched it, performed docking ops. Successfully delivered the fuel load to the target, but I guess I should've checked what off-loading would do to its center of mass while I was still in the hangar. Lost control over it during re-entry and was never able to recover.

Decided to try again with the Auk VII. Same problem cropped up - going to try to figure out what I can do about it at this point.

You could bring extra fuel for ballast, keep it on your craft instead of using it to refuel, then transfer your ballast fuel to the empty tank (maybe even ditch the empty if that helps).

Or design a ballast probe, move it from one mini-dock port to the other after mass shift.

[Fett2oo5]

I was highly inspired by many of the designs I have seen around the site, you guys have some really impressive builds!

So I thought I would try my hand at base design and construction. I wanted a modular design because my vision is quite grand. I new I wanted it to be a Keth facility with some functional aesthetics. I also thought a "corridor fork" would look cool too which took some geometry and patience.

Anyway, here is the first 6 structures of my base design.

Center outward (right then left)

Control Tower, corridor fork, corridor, Power Tower.

Corridor fork, corridor, Radio Tower, Tracking Station.

[Fett2oo5]

so, I first tried the obvious, a massive tower crane, but that wouldn't move, then went to the conventional telescoping boom, where i ran into the spaghetti joint problem. ended up doing a hybrid, with a shorter tower, on a conventional large-rover base, and a shorter telescoping boom. still has some joint flex, but not enough to be problematic with the fairly light loads it is intended for.

http://imgur.com/a/YwEWK#0

How do you get the boom to pivot? I've been wanting to do the same, I have a smaller one, but I want the arm to rotate.

[Deadweasel]

How do you get the boom to pivot? I've been wanting to do the same, I have a smaller one, but I want the arm to rotate.

That would be the Infernal Robotics mod, which I use to create VTOLs with much much more reliable flight profiles.

[mdcasey]

Today, I had my first successful rendezvous and docking without the use of an autopilot. It actually didn't take as long as i though it would.

[Mazlem]

I completed a 'Make an SSTO with a Jumbo-64 tank' challenge.