What did you do in KSP1 today?

[eddiew]

Soon... 

Now 50 tons lighter making 175 tons, fully fuelled, 124 parts including cargo, ready to go to space. Made with MKIV spaceplane parts, obviously. Reasonably sure it'll have 4km/s in LKO, but not tested yet.

Still technically a biplane, even though it's a BS design in reality, because it works so freaking well in KSP. Upper wings are canted ~3 degrees, resulting in a fully-fuelled liftoff at a very reasonable 100m/s. Homebrew 2.5m rapiers are 10% more thrusty thanks to KR&D, but otherwise at Tweakscale standard.

Roll handling isn't really as good as I want. Tailfin looks clumsy, will see about reducing and/or splitting into two. Will work on it. Sadly my vacation is over so I'm back to the usual 1-2 hours per day tops  

[Firemetal]

Well I'm not giving up.

Spoiler

The new and improved Osprey. (Finally, a name for it!) Clearly, last time it hadn't enough fuel. Well lets add another 1400 units of LF and maybe (if I can't get Kerbin AP high enough during ascent) more oxidizer!

This thing is going to make it to Laythe and back this time!

Edited September 5, 2016 by Firemetal

[Justicier]

Got my first ring station into 100km x 100km orbit today... it serves as an orbital refueling station to allow my spaceplanes to do interplanetary things. It was the most nerve-wracking launch I have ever done... It made it into orbit with about 85% of the ring's fuel unused.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Justicier

[RoboRay]

I probed Ike and Duna and saw some serious &#|!

[numerobis]

I wrote an autopilot that took off, climbed to cruising altitude, cruised over 11,000 km and landed (nearly) autonomously. I forgot to write the code to lower the landing gear so I did that bit by hand.

The plane looks pretty mean when it's out of fuel and gliding:

[Triop]

Vacation is over...Goodbye beach....

 

[Samniss Arandeen]

Project Ghibli made a (quite literally) sizable advancement today, with the nearly-successful test flight of Porco Rosso. While originally slated for a suborbital craft trial, the vehicle performed so admirably that the crew were given permission to make an orbital insertion burn anyways.

 

[Guest]

Infrastructure.

My medium-term goal is a big Duna/Ike mission where I want to set up a fully-kitted research station and mining operation. The research station part is pretty straightforward; just going to stack it and send it up with an atomic engine. I'm not familiar with mining though, so that I'm practicing on Minmus -- that'll also serve as a final refueling stop for any interplanetary missions.

I've now got thermal efficiency figured out, and have a mining stack in Minmus orbit, consisting of two big drills, a little refinery, and a tanker, all Twitched up for autonomous landing and, if necessary, hopping, as well as wheels so they can dock up. The next step is landing it and starting it up. Haven't decided whether I want to land the whole stack at once or each piece individually; the former would get everything in the same place no problem but might risk the stack toppling as I disassemble it, but the latter would likely entail a bit of hopping/driving to get everything together. Any issues that come up, I'll address in the improved version destined for Ike.

Research labs are way overpowered by the way. I've got my Mun and Minmus ones grinding out Science like crazy, I've already got about all the 300 Science level tech and half the 550 level; I don't in fact really need anything more at this point although a few more things would be chrome. I'm afraid I'll fill out the tech tree before I even get to Duna!

[GwynJHawke]

Got a new computer and was finally able to update from 1.0.5 to 1.1.3.  The new computer runs a lot better than my old one, so I decided to also download a few mods such as planetary bases, outer planets, KAS/KIS, Near Future Propulsion/Spacecraft/Electrical, and Kopernicus.

First off, the Outer Planets Mod is amazing. Its really good work and I love the variety in all of the moons. I'm still trying to figure out how to work some of the elements of KAS/KIS, but I'm looking forward to figuring it all out. Planetary bases is giving me some grief, but I love how the modules are deployable and how they look after they're deployed. I spent most of the past few days playing around with the Propulsion, Electrical, and Spacecraft mods.  I'm kinda in love with the two seat command pod. Its lighter than the Mk. 2 lunar can, has a nice aerodynamic shape, good reaction wheel strength, and really nice electrical and monoprop storage. Add to it that it has a built in probe core and its a perfect candidate for almost anything.  The Propulsion and Electrical mods are kind of two sides of the same coin. Most of the new Propulsion engines require at least several hundred units of electricity per second and the only practical way to power them is by using the fission reactors from the Electrical mod.  

But as for today, I launched seven recon probes just prograde of Kerbin's SOI and two recon probes just retrograde. The recon probes are equipped with a full range of gravitational, resource, and atmospheric scanners. They're meant to investigate and survey each planet and its moons for potential fuel mining and colony sites.

[Superfluous J]

12 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

Research labs are way overpowered by the way. I've got my Mun and Minmus ones grinding out Science like crazy, I've already got about all the 300 Science level tech and half the 550 level; I don't in fact really need anything more at this point although a few more things would be chrome. I'm afraid I'll fill out the tech tree before I even get to Duna!

That's not a problem with labs so much as with science. A little diligence in collecting science on Mun and Minmus and you can blow through the 550 tech nodes no problem. These days I rush interplanetary specifically because I don't want to eliminate the need for doing science anywhere but within Kerbin's SOI, and I have never - ever - used a mobile lab to generate science.

Back on thread topic, though I've not been playing much. I've been fiddling with modding though and am excited to have an all new way to play the "unlock parts" part of the game come KSP 1.2

[steedcrugeon]

Launched a Minmus science vessel, crewed up from the pad, comprising a modified version of my Duna vessel (ironing out the kinks). can't help but feel I should have done it the other way round but hey, launch windows don't come around often do they?

Failed numerous times at building a single launch fuel barge to send to Duna, this will require more work and multiple launches I think.

47 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

That's not a problem with labs so much as with science. A little diligence in collecting science on Mun and Minmus and you can blow through the 550 tech nodes no problem. These days I rush interplanetary specifically because I don't want to eliminate the need for doing science anywhere but within Kerbin's SOI.

I'm sending an MPL to Duna to harvest precious Science but I definitely have not bled dry the Biomes of Minmus or Mun. I to want to gather more from other bodies.

[kraden]

Well, I tried my hand at building a shuttle-like craft and managed to repeatedly fail. I did, however, save the crew every time, so the spaceplane portion is good. 

[Sharpy]

16 hours ago, XB-70A said:

 

 

How did you get GlowStripes to work with 1.1.3? When I include them in GameData, every single part refuses to load.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

That's not a problem with labs so much as with science. A little diligence in collecting science on Mun and Minmus and you can blow through the 550 tech nodes no problem. These days I rush interplanetary specifically because I don't want to eliminate the need for doing science anywhere but within Kerbin's SOI, and I have never - ever - used a mobile lab to generate science.

Back on thread topic, though I've not been playing much. I've been fiddling with modding though and am excited to have an all new way to play the "unlock parts" part of the game come KSP 1.2

Thing is, I like the gameplay with the labs. I enjoy making infrastructure and bases from which you can do stuff without having to do new launches all the time. Science is just way out of balance; it should be set up so that you actually need to go interplanetary to get more than a couple of the 550 tech nodes. And I do think at least a part of the balance problem is the labs: I've done, like, one or two Mun and Minmus landings and am way deeper in the tech tree than if I had done that without labs.

[Sharpy]

*shrug* I unlocked the whole science tree, and have some 11,000 points of science. Two labs did contribute to that - one sent to Duna pretty early on, one sent to Minmus. But to get these labs out of the door, I had at least 3 manned Minmus landings, some even with minor biome-hopping, 2 manned Mun landings, a bunch of unmanned, and a set of probes sent to Eve and Gilly.

By the time you can truly utilize the lab to its full potential, "traditional" science gets very grindy. The early +25 points that bought you a new node mean entirely nothing later on. Only the 500 harvested from a lab does. Meanwhile, my Minmus lab has a fully functional, big, nuclear-powered ISRU on board. It's an endgame level monster that is a reward for all that former grind and struggle, and allows to sweep the last nodes without pain.

Also, I plan to install some mods that expand the tree beyond the +1000 nodes. I will NEED these 11,000 I have, and more - a near-clone of the Minmus lab is on its way to Ike, upgraded with Nukes and a passenger bus (just contract requirement but already comes into use to pick up stragglers from the orbit.)

[ThatPilot]

8 hours ago, RoboRay said:

I probed Ike and Duna and saw some serious &#|!

That's a sweet probe! Can we have .craft?

I've docked Helios One solar panel farm to Atena 1 science outpost in Mun low orbit to sustain Lab science.

[elpollodiablo]

I don't build planes, my only SSTO was built when KSP was in early access. That sadly also means i don't know how landing gears work. And because rovers get tested by boosting over the launchpad with their afterburners, the fact that this design doesn't rove around was discovered once it was landed on the Moon.

The Skycrane was supposed to be dual use as comm-array/energy source for a future mining base and a recharger for the "rover" when it's solar panels inevitably get destroyed. The latter was pointless now, because the "rover" probably won't make it out of the crater with the amount of fuel it has. Or so i thought, but as we all know, there's nothing that can't be solved with speed, power and a heavy abuse of physical timewarp.

After it ran out of fuel i had to complete the science section of Earth's Spaceport to unlock rover wheels. The debate is now on between engineers and scientist about the power source, nuclear or solar, to power these cyclotrones.

[DunaRocketeer]

12 minutes ago, elpollodiablo said:

I love this station design.

[RoboRay]

2 hours ago, ThatPilot said:

That's a sweet probe! Can we have .craft?

 

Sure!  I want to make some de-modded versions for people who don't use ScanSat or RemoteTech, though.  I'll post them tonight.  Either way, though, Ven's Stock Revamp will be required.  All three of the probes depend on some of Ven's parts and I can't easily replace them.

As a teaser, here's the payload package mounted on the trans-stage:

Figuring out how to mount it with a folded dish antenna directly underneath was fun. 

Edited September 6, 2016 by RoboRay

[Leopard]

OTV Ulysses returned to Kerbin orbit, where it waited. Redesigned lander for Mun launched on my normal rocket, but instead of using the trans stage to fly to mun, picked it up with the OTV, robbed its fuel and set off.

Wobbly rocket again, very low thrust flight, largely thrusting radial, wasted huge amounts of fuel. Ended up robbing the lander of its fuel simply to dock with the station round mun, OTV now docked, empty, seems obvious the whole concept of using the clamp-o-tron like this doesn't work. Ho hum, back to the first idea.

Anyway that revised lander was refuelled from the station, leaving its tanks nearly dry, and sent down under remote control as a test.

Landed on the side of a mountain, and slid to its destruction before I could stabilise it or lift off, did however make it down with enough fuel I think it could have got back up. Though its not fun to fly for docking, so needs a bit of work anyway for the next version.

 

So job for probably later in the week is revise the lander slightly, fly it back to Mun using its trans stage which I know works, and a second unmanned test

[MaxwellsDemon]

After an unfortunate hiatus in KSPing, I returned to KSC yesterday...  I solved part of a problem with my Munar/Minmus complex with moar struts, but I think moar boosters will be needed as well.

Fiddled with another part of a prototype Duna craft.  There won't be a good launch window for some time, so there's no special rush.

Horus 25, with Brooke, Lislenna, and Boboly Kerman, launched to the Mun to investigate anomalous readings from near the munar south pole; measurements were successfully take from low orbit but a landing will be required to obtain full data.  Pilot Brooke and scientist Boboly will make the landing later today while engineer Lislenna remains in orbit.

[capi3101]

Got to play KSP last night after my eldest kid went to bed (finally). I had left Bob landed in the Farside Crater on Mun with three of his lander legs busted off but also with a lander that still had close to 4,000 m/s of delta-V in it. Decided to biome hop - had better luck landing the craft on its external tanks than I had with its initial landing. Hit the Highlands, Midlands and Southwest Crater before deciding to call it a mission and send him home. Kerbin transfer burn ended with 15 m/s of delta-V left in his tank. Cooked off the side-mounted goo containers during re-entry; it was a good thing I had (as a precaution) collected all the data out of all the experiments before heading back to Kerbin. Definitely needed the heat shield for the re-entry. Got about 1,300 sci for his mission; probably could've gotten more if I'd remembered to unlock surface samples while he was still on Mun. Still, the mission accomplished its overall goals of giving me access to better crap.

Followed up his return with a sub-orbital tourist hop and a parts test on the launchpad. Picked up a near-KSC contract for in-flight temperature readings and a contract to put a science probe in a specific Munar orbit. I designed the probe and its booster before needing to call it a night; hopefully I'll get to fly it tonight.

Edited September 6, 2016 by capi3101

[XB-70A]

5 hours ago, Sharpy said:

How did you get GlowStripes to work with 1.1.3? When I include them in GameData, every single part refuses to load.

I am still running under 1.0.5 and these tanks are the ²H ones from Impossible Innovations (I think there was an update recently for 1.1.3).

[Mikki]

I have fine tuned a giant Potatoroidwrangler with Kerbal atomics mod. It is quite tall, 80 meters. I can use it for  surfacemining too, and it doesn`t fit the screen at all:
 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Mikki
ups pic:D and typo

[Francois424]

Having a very hard time getting my grand tour lander done. 
 - I think putting the refinery on a land-able ring part of the mothership was a mistake, even tho it looks cool and I can roughly refuel the main part of the ship in just one fell swoop.
 - I also means that since it's a nuclear powered ring, I have mostly LF tanks, making refueling the lander (with LFO engines because THW on many moons/planet) a total nightmare.
 - Also, having a SSTO doing Tylo, without an ISRU unit makes for huge quantities of Fuel, a rather large lander, and little margin for error for that moon.  Took forever and never a really satisfying outcome.
 - The game ***still*** lags from only 300 parts.  I just don't get it.  My PC is far from being a potato, and streamers had ALL announced that KSP performance had improved tremendously. I'm not seeing it one bit.  I thought it was because I was using Procedural parts which is rather resource intensive, and I switched to MKS and FuelTankPlus and it's just not any better.  This is sapping most of my fun away, I was getting 300 parts "yellow performance" back in 1.0.5, why am I not getting better performances from 1.1.3 ?  What a drag... not happy about that one bit.  Was/Is green clock 500 parts performance just too much to ask !?  At least I don't run out of memory anymore, so 64Bits has at least delivered this much.
 - I am ready to set off, but I think I'll just scrap the idea, wait for 1.2 for the wheel fixes, and start a new career game instead of GrandTouring.

 

But At least I docked my universal (barring Eve) lander to my mothership, totalizing 323 parts :

Now I just need to refuel the whole thing, and I can start the Grand tour... Assuming I go ahead with it.  Maybe, we'll see

Edited September 6, 2016 by Francois424