What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Sharpy]

1 hour ago, Magzimum said:

 *Makes note in Jool-5 planning book: Bring more solar panels.*
 

Pointless. A really bad mass to energy ratio. Use RTG if you can afford, or fuel cells - with a 4+ star engineer ISRU+fuel cells is a sustainable source of power too.

[AccidentsHappen]

Gosh dang, I need to clean out my mods folder. I've got three copies of Module manager! I don't even know how that happened! My KSP takes about 3 minutes to load so that's not the worst. I flew Val up in my new ultra lightweight fighter (I'll try to provide images later) and tested the ejection module (thanks again to the amazing and talented @linuxgurugamer) which worked flawlessly. I can land it at 15m/s which I think is pretty good, although I still have to phase some bugs out.

[Dewirix]

Having started a new career in 1.2, I spent last night planning and testing a new communications relay to provide a constant connection for my upcoming missions to Duna.

Here it is in the VAB:

And here's the result of test flight I conducted in separate sandbox save:

Tonight I have to try and do the same again, with the added bonus of standing to lose a hefty chunk of my funds if I fluff the launch. Still, it should mean I can send probes to the entire inner system without losing touch with them (unless the sun is in the way). 

[SmashingKirby148]

11 hours ago, Benji13 said:

Which mod is that pod from?

Sorry, I couldn't answer because I was asleep. Timezones suck, man. xD

But yes, as @Starman4308 said the mod is by the fantastic Necrobones. And pretty much all of his mods are awesome.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, 2 to go). Yesterday began with a tech upgrade for the Gurney 7a long-range rescue craft; launched said craft towards Mün with a mission to pick up Catxie from orbit. I then turned my attention to the design of a ground outpost for contract. The contract in particular was fairly standard - the usual array of junk, a cupola and 4000 units of LF, headed for Minmus. I built a craft that would fulfill the job, but couldn't come up with a name better than Bates Motel 7; definite lack of inspiration there. The finished craft took the record for most expensive craft from Fireball 7 and my program was too strapped for cash to launch it at the beginning of my day, so I have yet to deploy the craft. I had a Kerbal Tour Bus up in orbit from the previous day that I had forgotten about; I decided the two tourists aboard had been in orbit long enough, so I brought them on down. Their contract was replaced with a Rhino parts test, which I picked up mainly so I'd have access to that particular engine. 

In my evening session, I brought Strange Cargo and Next Objective into Münar orbit, fulfilling the contracts of fifteen tourists in the process. Strange Cargo rendezvoused with Spamcan 7 still in orbit to pick up Jenwin and offload tourists Jerbald and Ronrim, who wish to visit the surface. I went ahead and sent Strange Cargo back towards Kerbin, where she should be able to aerobrake back into orbit. Next Objective is still in Münar orbit awaiting an assessment of the contracts of her passengers - I don't have anywhere to put the surface-bound tourists from that craft at the moment. After putting the Beep-Beep 7k probe into a final orbit around Mün, Kokura arrived and Juluna began gathering orbital gravioli data. I'll probably concern myself with continuing Kokura's mission later in the day today.

[ROXunreal]

The guys in suits that throw money into our space program were basically like: "Ok so you went to the Mun and did all sorts of science and stuff, but you left half the lander on the Mun, the other half in Mun orbit and all the launch and transfer stages are now space garbage or ash rain on Kerbin and it's expensive! Our finance board has decided that we totally bet you can't bring a craft that was on the Mun back to Kerbin!"

So our Office and Decision Making Department replied: "Well tell you what finance board, not only will we bring the lander back, we'll also bring the whole transfer rocket back as well, so you can talk less and throw money more!".

The result was the Reincarnation

It launched at night because the Mun was in a favorable position to KSC and because we needed to test that the lights on the launch pad pass the impressiveness test.

According to ancient Kerbin lore, an eclipse is the sign of a Mun lander and transfer stage successfully completing their mission and reentering and landing without unexpected explosions. So it was written.

The Lander Comeback detaches from the automated Orbiter and tells it "Stay here, I'll need you!" through a long sequence of ones and zeroes.

The target landing area is the smaller, north crater of the Twin Craters. This is Valentina Kerman's first Mun mission.

Landing is phenomenally successful, almost as phenomenally as how phenomenally we'll rub the amount of money this mission saves into our financier's noses. Valentina forgot to take a picture with the flag, because she's still new to the Mun, and remembering to do seven things is too intense a mental process.

After taking rocks and pressing buttons on instruments on the Mun's surface was done, the Comeback took off and successfully docked with the Reincarnation, which then burned for low Kerbin Orbit.

Re-entry was smooth with fuel to spare and slow down. At 4000m the parachutes deployed and the Comeback lander detached from the Reincarnation vessel. Both landed safely in the desert.

The humiliated financiers of our space program complained about not landing in the KSC itself...

Edited November 4, 2016 by ROXunreal

[Martian Emigrant]

Good day Kerbal lovers.

http://imgur.com/a/qkqjA

The saga as ended.

From Gilly Allan went to Moho.

Stop 14. Moho. Not an actual stop as there isn’t enough delta-v to orbit or land.

From there went back to Eve-Gilly. Unlike the last simulation I didn't wait for a natural encounter. The encounter was forced a bit. Cost fuel of course but took only a few turns around the sun.

Allan was relieved to orbit Gilly again. Having only 87 Units of LF left. Plenty as it turn out.

Landed on a hill. Went to plant the usual flag then had to chase his ship down the hill.

Uneventful return to Kerbin-Mun.

Stop 15. Mun.

Allan rushed to the arch.

Only to find that Jeb as been there before him.

Me: How do you know it was Jeb?

Allan: Read the plaque.

Yup. T'was Jeb.

Easy return to Kerbin.

Stop 16. Kerbin.

There. Done.

37y, 58d, 3h, 43m,42s

Allan wants to retire from the Space Corps. He talks about bees and tulips all the time.

 

Learned a lot. Not sure, yet, what was normal or just luck.

 

Next I will be working on a ship that can do the system and land everywhere.

Eve is an issue. A big issue.

But with hard work and dedication.it can be.....

Oh look a bunny.

 

ME

[RoboRay]

I performed a flight range test of the Bumblebee.  If you climb to 10 km altitude, endurance stretches out to three and a half hours, which is enough to get a quarter of the way around Kerbin from KSC.  Say "hello" to Harvester Massif Tracking Station:

(Yeah, it's big.)

This means my concern about the plane's range possibly being inadequate for island-hopping on Laythe is laid to rest.

 

[Red Shirt]

Updated to 1.2.1 Made a copy as usual. Downloaded the new Kopernicus. Loaded my 1.2 mods up. Works great. 

In the meantime I decided 8 different versions of KSP on my desktop was getting extreme so I zipped up all but the last couple. While doing this I was looking over my old craft files. I copied the Dres Lander I designed in 0.24, so I could dune buggy the canyon, and loaded it in 1.2.1.

This ship is a great argument for why we need dv info or maybe a better argument why we don't. I created this long before I had any inkling of dv. Launch. Fail. Revert. Edit. Try again. Learned as I went until I made it. It was the size of a small town but I made it. The craft has 550 parts. There is the approx equivalence of over 20 orange tanks Weighs 979 t. The total dv is 9335 in 1.2.1. Didn't check in 0.24.

It is totally stock. It still flies. Went easily to orbit with the center 2 1/2 orange tanks unused and 1200 dv in the remaining stage tanks. Can you say over designed? The lander stage nukes are from back when they used oxidizer so I need to redesign the lander. A few quick tweaks to remove oxidizer and altering the placement of a few fuel lines, boosted the dv to 11000.

I highly recommend you dig through your ancient craft files and see how much your understanding has changed. Now, I think I'll try to see how small I can make this ship.

 

[Matt Lowne]

On 01/11/2016 at 11:23 PM, SmashingKirby148 said:

I've seen a lot of designs from amazing SSTO people ( @Matt Lowne and @Thrimm , those two are fantastic (and believe me, there are more)  ) that have the wings lower down instead of snap dead in the middle, does this help with reentry and do the wings have a higher heat tolerance?

Thanks <3

The "Big S Wings" (the delta and strake wings that can hold fuel) have better heat tolerance than the other wings, so they're usually a good bet for SSTOs and shuttles

[Magzimum]

I did a first test making a boat! She's called "Boat Mk1" (Yeah!), and she comes equipped with two boaty things at the bottom, and seats for 7-Kerbals, and a rear deck too because everybody knows that boats have decks. I was quite surprised how well she boated. She boated up to 25.9 m/s! The Kerbals on the rear deck managed to stay upright at speeds up to 1.0 m/s or so, so I learned that Kerbals don't have sea legs - they looked all seasick and miserable as soon as things got interesting. And they stayed flat on the deck until the boat came to a stop (so <0.3 m/s). But at least they didn't fall overboard, so huzzah or whatever sailors say... 

Here she is, looking like a hippo on her small boat-wheels. I put the wheels on decouplers to make sure she ain't never coming back ashore.

So maybe v2.0 should have wheels a little more permanent. Here (below) we see the lovely couple enjoying the good weather. It is tradition that after you pay far too much money to be on a boat, you at least pretend to enjoy it. Notice the velocity of 0.0 m/s.

So, Val and Bob aren't so good at pretending. Here they are already seasick on the deck, just a few km away from home, going only 10.4 m/s. 

So, with Val & Bob safely strapped into their seats, and supplied with barfbags, I gunned it and tried to see how fast she could boat. Turned out she is just as good at boating as she is at making a fuss. The left engine ran only at 25%, while the right engine went full throttle, which obviously wasn't so great for boating straight. So, I had to manually limit the other engine to make her go straight. But because the horizontal boat-wings were placed at a small angle (5 or 10 degrees, I think), she actually tried to climb out of the water, which reduced the drag. It also lifted the engines out of the water enough to create some spray.

And look at that spray she's making. She looks like a hovercraft! 

So, for a Mk1, this was a HUGE success, because I have no idea what a good Kerbal-boat can do in this game. And things soon start looking awesome if you have no frame of reference. 

Finally, below you can see the lovely Boat Mk1 with a setting Sun, at her top speed, looking all boaty and all.

Apologies for my lack of boating vocabulary but why can't they just say left and right? 

[SmashingKirby148]

1 hour ago, Matt Lowne said:

Thanks <3

The "Big S Wings" (the delta and strake wings that can hold fuel) have better heat tolerance than the other wings, so they're usually a good bet for SSTOs and shuttles

 

 

Np  xD

Oh I see... well, it might be a bit too "Laythe" for that... it's designed for Laythe and since the atmosphere is thinner it probably won't be as much of a fiery reentry, and it survived Kerbin reentry so I think I'm grand. And I'm also scared to change the design in case it won't work again.                                                                                                                                                                       Anyone like my pun? No? Ok....

[Guest]

20 hours ago, SmashingKirby148 said:

It's time to bring the crew home... the mission was cut short due to disappearing KIS items (although it was my fault since in the VAB I put them in the seat inventories of empty pods) but we still got a hefty amount of science so it's time to return it.

That's reminds me of something:

[SmashingKirby148]

Just now, WildLynx said:

That's reminds me of something:

 

Wow! I like how you made the rover with the wheel mounts and solar panels! Looks class!  Was it difficult to get to Duna?

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, SmashingKirby148 said:

Wow! I like how you made the rover with the wheel mounts and solar panels! Looks class!  Was it difficult to get to Duna?

Rover was landed separately, protected by fairings. At lower altitude, drag chutes opened, fairings jettisoned, main chutes opened, lander landed "face first" - see 2 heavy landing legs in the front? - then it fell on main landing legs and tail part with parachutes, RCS and small deorbit engines was jettisoned. Once rover was on the ground and intact, I landed main lander nearby. Both lander and rover (with fairings and deorbit stage) were delivered to Duna orbit by OSS2 and OSS3.

We already visited one anomaly, and now I considering an optional mission extension to visit other two.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Guest

[SmashingKirby148]

Just now, WildLynx said:

Rover was landed separately, protected by fairings. At lower altitude, drag chutes opened, fairings jettisoned, main chutes opened, lander landed "face first" - see 2 heavy landing legs in the front? - then it fell on main landing legs and tail part with parachutes, RCS and small deorbit engines was jettisoned. Once rover was on the ground and intact, I landed main lander nearby. Both lander and rover (with fairings and deorbit stage) were delivered to Duna orbit by OSS2 and OSS3.

 

Ahhh ok. That's clever! I just used overpowered reaction wheels and bounced off the lander that brought my rover there and hope it didn't blow up. xD

[ThatHomelessGuy]

Finally on the final leg of my round trip IVA no HUD mission making a bee line across the desert and well Val has reported some good news and some bad news to the KSC.
The good news is so far their mission was a success even with the fuel concerns and a completely untested plane. Valentina has worked out a more economic method of flight with this plane and believes she can bring it all the way home. On top of that Dawn cracks on the horizon ahead about 6 or 7 hundred klicks west of KSC.

But as dawn breaks it shatters and here is where the bad news comes in.

Yup digital instrument failure for Valentinas cockpit. The silver lining being that the analogues seem to be still working as well as the onboard computers.
The other two cockpits seem to still be working fine though so Valentina is able to get some of her instrument readings and fuel levels from Bill (He is the flight Engineer after all)

Looking down the crew take in this opportunity to enjoy the sights and even spot few oasis's from the air now the sun has finally risen again.

And Minimus was once again spotted in the rear camera.


And of course last but not least This...

And This...

Some day.... Some day soon.

I love this game.

Edited November 4, 2016 by ThatHomelessGuy
Just had to kerbalise a word

[The Aziz]

I did a thing.

I need good name for this plane.

[Brownhair2]

The MTU Eagle is refueled and off to Titanus!

You have missed nothing. I refueled and left. That is all.

Pay no heed to any other equipment. Not that there is any.

 

 

[ThatHomelessGuy]

12 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I did a thing.

I need good name for this plane.

Ramrod.
It looks like it should be called ramrod.

[ROXunreal]

Sent more garbage cans to space, this time to the Mun. Unlike the ones I had up before, these are the Mk 2 garbage cans, featuring upgraded systems such as red paint. They also actually have more or less the same orbital parameters and are spaced out evenly above the Mun.

 

Later I also replaced the garbage cans above Kerbin with....well, trash piles to be honest.

 

[ThatHomelessGuy]

11 minutes ago, ROXunreal said:

Sent more garbage cans to space, this time to the Mun. Unlike the ones I had up before, these are the Mk 2 garbage cans, featuring upgraded systems such as red paint. They also actually have more or less the same orbital parameters and are spaced out evenly above the Mun.

 

Later I also replaced the garbage cans above Kerbin with....well, trash piles to be honest.

 

Redefining Kessler syndrome one bin at a time.

"Mk 2 garbage cans"

[Thrawn889]

Update Day 4: 

So since my day 3 activities attempting to rescue Rodney didnt work out so well. I decided that it would be a good idea to try a Mun landing. Ive never done this before and my only guide is having watched a let's play on youtube... So i built an attempt at a lander and launch vessel. 

this was attempt number 1. does llook like much but i dont have the rockomax tech to be able to launch to orbit with the mainsail or its little cousin. but yeah. This ship design wasnt all that great it kept pulling my launch off equatorial correcting which was causing a massive waste of fuel. 

I built a couple more attempts as the night wore on... i even tried to build a probe version. 

So i realised that i needed to use a different probe to the first one that you unlock... but i happy i learnt how to put the airstream fuselage on a rocket. 

After this launch failed i built - 

This was the one that reached orbit in a mostly equatorial line... and then i realised that my stage 4 rocket didnt have the fuel to give me the mun encounter and the stage 3 Terrier engine that i was planning to use to land and return with used half its fuel burning me out of kerbal orbit... 

this was one of the mun encounters i managed after reverting to my pre mun encounter burn to reach the mun. I kinda ran outta fuel on my first attempt and would have drifted into space. 

myy second encounter's planning was great but again. I  ran out of fuel trying to slow my descent and kinda struck the mun surface a little fast.... 

so yeah again my lander too a heavy load of damage and then Kerbal crashed... So i decided to come here and post of my failure and hope that i can find a quicksave that lets me complete this i might just stick Valentina in orbit for now and try a landing tomorrow... I will keep you posted.

 

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

Started my first official 1.2 game after putting it off for about a month. Here are all my flights in order so far:

Moho A 1 (Just an unmanned suborbital flight but not into space): Success

Moho A 2 (An unmanned suborbital flight into space): Success

S-1 Flight 1 (Tried to send a Kerbal at suborbital speeds for the first time. Pitched up too much at take-off and the engines exploded. The Kerbal survived.): Failure

S-1 Flight 2 (Second try at the supersonic flight. Went faster and higher than originally intentioned: highest altitude was 24,129 meters and went 1,280 meters per second.): Success

Moho B 1 (Tried to recover a payload after a suborbital flight into space. The electricity ran out and the antenna exploded during reentry, so it splashed-down into the ocean.): Failure

S-1 Flight 3 (Jeb's first flight. The leading candidate for the first Kerbal in space was to break a new speed record. He ultimately went 1,369 meters per second.): Success

Moho B 2 (Second attempt at recovering a payload. The antenna exploded but there was still enough electric charge to deploy the parachutes.): Success

Moho B 3 (Tested the effects of landing on dry ground): Success

S-1 Flight 4 (Another supersonic flight. Exact same occurence as the first flight.): Failure

S-1 Flight 5 (Another leading candidate for the first Kerbal in space, Valentina Kerman, was to make a supersonic flight, but the exact same occurence as the last flight prohibited it.): Failure

Transit 1 (Tried launching a small ground station to communicate with orbital probes. Tried to land on the Eastern peninsula, but landed too short into the water, but it still works.): Success

S-1 Flight 6 (Another supersonic flight. An attempt to set a new altitude record by a test pilot. Shattered the previous records and flew at 40,215 meters.): Success

Messenger 1 (The first orbital probe. Was launched by an Eve A rocket in roughly a 130x520 km orbit. Tested the effects of ground stations all over Kerbin.): Success

S-2 Flight 1 (The first attempt at flying a two-seater supersonic plane by Jebediah Kerman as a test pilot. Flew at up to 32,778 meters and set a manned speed record of 1,485 meters per second.): Success

Messenger 2 (Second attempt at an orbital probe. Launched into a slightly higher orbit than Messenger 1. Deorbited and mis-shot the KSC. It picked up a spin and exploded mid-air): Failure

 

Next planned flights: Transit 2 (Will be launched by an Eve A to the opposite side of Kerbin for a new ground station.)

Messenger 3 (An orbital communications satellite in Keostationary orbit)

An S-1 about to land:

Messenger 2 in orbit: 

 

Edited November 5, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[ComradeGreen]

7 hours ago, Magzimum said:

I did a first test making a boat! She's called "Boat Mk1" (Yeah!), and she comes equipped with two boaty things at the bottom, and seats for 7-Kerbals, and a rear deck too because everybody knows that boats have decks. I was quite surprised how well she boated. She boated up to 25.9 m/s! The Kerbals on the rear deck managed to stay upright at speeds up to 1.0 m/s or so, so I learned that Kerbals don't have sea legs - they looked all seasick and miserable as soon as things got interesting. And they stayed flat on the deck until the boat came to a stop (so <0.3 m/s). But at least they didn't fall overboard, so huzzah or whatever sailors say... 

Here she is, looking like a hippo on her small boat-wheels. I put the wheels on decouplers to make sure she ain't never coming back ashore.

So maybe v2.0 should have wheels a little more permanent. Here (below) we see the lovely couple enjoying the good weather. It is tradition that after you pay far too much money to be on a boat, you at least pretend to enjoy it. Notice the velocity of 0.0 m/s.

So, Val and Bob aren't so good at pretending. Here they are already seasick on the deck, just a few km away from home, going only 10.4 m/s. 

So, with Val & Bob safely strapped into their seats, and supplied with barfbags, I gunned it and tried to see how fast she could boat. Turned out she is just as good at boating as she is at making a fuss. The left engine ran only at 25%, while the right engine went full throttle, which obviously wasn't so great for boating straight. So, I had to manually limit the other engine to make her go straight. But because the horizontal boat-wings were placed at a small angle (5 or 10 degrees, I think), she actually tried to climb out of the water, which reduced the drag. It also lifted the engines out of the water enough to create some spray.

And look at that spray she's making. She looks like a hovercraft! 

So, for a Mk1, this was a HUGE success, because I have no idea what a good Kerbal-boat can do in this game. And things soon start looking awesome if you have no frame of reference. 

Finally, below you can see the lovely Boat Mk1 with a setting Sun, at her top speed, looking all boaty and all.

Apologies for my lack of boating vocabulary but why can't they just say left and right? 

 

Port and Starboard are important because their relative to the ship, not just everything around you. it can't be confused for someone else's left or right.