What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Andem]

11 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Today! We boldly go!

H... How...? What?

[eddiew]

Mission control had gotten used to ignoring rescue missions due to an overstocked barracks already, but then they got a distress call from this guy... (legit, no edits.)

It seemed like a sign from the universe, and mission control decided that having a legendary wizard on the team was well worth the inconvenience of a trip to Mun. Not to waste the time, a training mission for Roddenberry, Doohan, River, Llew and Tora Kerman was put together, beefing them all up to 3-stars on their return.

While they were away, the research team sank another 2,375 science points into KR&D to yet again improve the performance of nuclear engines (by a further 10% above base). The result is a beefed up Firebird with 1200 ISP, that hits LKO with an astonishing 7km/s in the tank. Basically it'll SSTAnywhere. The engineering team are muttering that it seems a bit 'overpowered' and 'unrealistic', but the boffins in R&D keep pointing to the sky and saying that Starcrossed Station has been beaming down data for over 10 years in order to develop these mighty engines and say that it is completely justified. On the whole, mission control agrees with the science team that it is about darn time there were some really good long distance options on the table.

...on the other hand, the next 40 ISP is going to cost nearly 1400 science points, for a 3.33% efficiency gain. Various shareholders are muttering about diminishing returns and better ways to invest, so maybe this is as far as science can take these particular engines. Nevertheless, 1200 ISP is quite enough to get Firebird V to Gilly, hop all (three of) its biomes, have a dance party, and return to drop the rocks at Starcrossed with 1km/s still to spare with no aerobraking along the way.

On a more general planning note, mission control has noticed that Starcrossed is still chewing over the data from the Jool Discovery mission some 6 years (3 RL weeks) ago, and has decreed that only one biome per body of data should be deposited by returning craft. Any missions covering multiple biomes should return their additional data directly to KSC for public cloud computing applications to handle. Should Starcrossed still prove to be backlogged, mission control may restrict it to processing surface samples only.

(Side note: I have the Alcubierre Warp Drive sitting at the end of my tech tree, and it's starting to look within reach... not sure whether to beef it up to cost maybe 50,000 research points, or just get the thing after the next big mission and call it quits before a fresh start in 1.2...)

[Francois424]

Today marked the 3rd episode of the 'Explorer I' series.

After much discussion after the very successful Minmus and Mün landings, it was decided it was time for a more... daring destination.  So Mission Control decided to send another Moho mission, the fourth since the 1.0.2 plan was designed.  For some reason someone at Mission control really loves Moho.  Times change and so does the agency's priorities I guess.  So the plan was drawn and the window appearing in 45 days should please the crew or the 'Explorer I', giving them another month or so on the Mün  to play/science around.

Some at mission control worried that the 6'500 dV mothership could fail the mission due to lack of said dV... The last ship to make the trip back to Moho in the 1.0.2 plan was the 10.6k dV monster know as the 'Odysseus' and it had about a quarter of it's fuel left after making stable, polar orbit.  So the KSC pulled out the info from Kerbnet and it actually put everyone at ease... The go ahead was given.

 

So 5'040 dV needed (1k inclination burn included) and we have 6.5k... What could *possibly* go wrong ?

 

 

The crew returned from the Mün for the last time, topping off the tanks of the mothership, and planned the upcoming burn in 45 days.  The engine roared to get into a Kerbin orbit and then again a bit later to drop the Apoapsis so the Mün wouldn't grab the ship later. Everyone stood ready and was waiting for the Kerbin departure burn.

After a few more days of waiting and enjoying their final view of Kerbin for a long, long time, the Crew engaged the engine for the 5min burn to Moho.

 

The burn in question had the our engineers, Bill and Nicole, on edge... The FTmN2240 was still as a matter fact an experimental piece of hardware prone to overheating, regardless of the eight Radiators.  And they were right about it.  Multiple times the engine came close to serious overheating and very nearly blew off the small RTG giving electricity to the engine section about 5 times.  Working with the engineers back home, Bill and Nicole were able to make some config adjustments to how the flow of LiquidFuel went thru the engine in such a way as to cut the Heat generation in half.  It's not perfect, but it shouldn't blow itself from overheating only running at 50% anymore, no matter if it's a 5 minutes burn (which everyone agreed it's quite enough, for longer burns we'll just take cooling breaks).  Because of these issues, the burn took 300 m/s more dV that originally planned for.

After roughly 110 days, we got to Moho's orbit... but she wasn't there.  That was planned however as all we needed to do was to perform the 1k dV inclination change.  As luck would have it, as soon as it was done, there was a polar 100k encounter waiting for us... Very little tweaking indeed and we had a perfect encounter.  Gotta love the KSP and their window planner supercomputers.

We should be just above Moho's north pole now...  but that's okay, let's enjoy the sunshine and wait for next orbit !

 

So about 220 days later, we are back where we started... but Moho's there this time !  A perfect encounter indeed.  Let's perform the orbit burn.

 

This is where things took a worrying turn.  First the orbit burn maneuver was stated as taking a bit more dV than we had available... So much for the estimated 5k dV requirement.  Even factoring the extra 300m/s lost in the original Kerbin escape burn, and the 1k inclination change (which went as expected so no issues there), why is it taking 1.5k MORE Delta-V than originally planned ?  Big trouble ahead and not much way to get around it.  What was done, was to burn enough for an elliptical orbit and try to use every bit of fuel left to do a suicide-burn landing on Moho with only the lander. It's a long shot, but mission control does not have anything else to offer.  The only one that didn't seem to mind was Jebediah, everybody else was just freaked.  Having no choice, everybody boarded the lander, decoupled it from the rest of the mothership and concentrated on where to land.

From the earlier missions, KSC recommended the huge, flat crater in Moho's northern hemisphere.  Not having any dV to spare, we waited in orbit until it was in front of us.  It took the better part of two weeks given Moho's slow rotation period, but on the bright side, it was facing the sun when we attempted the landing....  I hope it does well.

The crew made it safely down and deployed the drills.  Man was that ever too close for comfort !  Everybody (even Jebediah) need a new pair of underwear.

 

Had I planned a higher orbit originally, they where dead.
Had I designed a slightly less efficient lander... they where dead.
Had the mothership 100m/s less Delta-V ? they where dead.
Had we attempted to land in a more scenic spot with gorgeous mountains and rocky, uneven terrain? We were dead.
Had we attempted tp land in an area richer than the scanned 20% ore-cutoff spot we ended on? We were dead.
Had we attempted to change the inclination to land in the crater earlier?  We were dead...

if fact, the landing wrapped up with ZERO dV. The Engine was at 100% throttle, flamed-out because out-of-fuel around 100 meters off the surface and the lander then violently hit the ground on the landing legs at 10,6 m/s. Nothing broke, and everyone was okay.  But man. *whew*.  KSC really needs to send @NecroBones's manufacturing plant of those landing gear a case of Champaign.  Everybody there earned it.
Next mission to Moho will have to feature an extra module with a tank or two of LF, just to be on the safe side of things.

At least we're probably thru the worst maneuvers as far as Delta-V is concerned, as none of the other planets and moon have such high requirements. And most have tiny gravity moons to make landing for refueling much easier.  Oh by the way on that last picture ?  That white dot slightly to the left side ?  That's the mothership.  I love the visual effect of Scatterer/EvE.

The crew will spend a while on Moho, it will takes half the lander's fuel to land, then uses half to get back to the mothership, so at least 5 refueling sessions if my planning is okay.
After that, it's off to EVE (well, Gilly because this lander can't do Eve). 

To be continued !

Edited September 11, 2016 by Francois424

[cubinator]

Here's a little thing I came up with yesterday for a tourist contract:

The tourist is in the downwards-facing pod for "extra" comfort. As in, "Gees, that's comfy."

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, Andem said:

H... How...? What?

The warp engine is a pair of ...

 

[Andem]

6 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

The warp engine is a pair of ...

 

How did you make the saucer section?

[JadeOfMaar]

Procedural Parts and Ven's Textures for Procedural Parts.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Tried to load a 710m tall clampless tower I made back in 1.0.4

[Sharpy]

I think this pic sums up my day best.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

57 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Tried to load a 710m tall clampless tower I made back in 1.0.4

 

 

Whaaaaat??

Good Sir, you simply must gif this!

 

Me? I got side-tracked from my side track. But I made a couple of cool airplanes.

Wright flyer analogue. It actually, well, flies.

The first Ussari to break the sound barrier!

In grand Ussari tradition, brave Megicca not only broke the sound barrier, she went into space by a good margin, landed on the other side of the world, and was never heard from again.

But I did finally manage to finish the video I've been working on, and what was supposed to be a quick distraction to go explore Stock Visual Terrain has now become it's own mission thread.

 

 

[Aegrim]

Been building this over the last 2 or 3 days in between exploration missions.

It's got a permanent crew of 2, but they're living out of the 2 supply capsules as it's got little to no storage for food and such on board. It's got Oxygen and Water recycling though, but is relying on supplies from the not-so-frequent shuttle visits for food. This is more to do with me getting to grips with TAC lifesupport though, and how i'm fitting construction around stuff.

 

I've also recently got my Venera probe into orbit around Venus.

Here are the first images it broadcast on approach

And a closer look at the face

In game I honestly can't tell if there's clouds or not. If there are my game may have bugged out because they're stationary if they're there, or too thick to see the surface. We shall investigate further.

 

[GwynJHawke]

Spent the day designing a compact top stage command module with a healthy amount of built in Delta V for a Jool 5 mission. It's supposed to be able to attach to multiple lower stages for the various mission profile requirements for Laythe, Tylo, and Vail-Bop-Pol. 

[Benji13]

Added Solar Panel Modules to Skyview Station. Also managed to get a shot of it with the Sun, Kerbin, Mun and Moho in the same frame.

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Benji13

[eddiew]

Kind of a slow mission... with low gravity and a heavy atmosphere, falling speed on Tekto quickly comes down to 20m/s - which is painful when you're 20km up and can't go above 4x timewarp 

Oh well, tis done, the data is in, the contract is complete and the roots are in the bank! Next up... I dunno. Maybe Moho. That feels like somewhere I can't do with Spaceplane (yet...) so it might be time to revert to rockets.

[Salvator]

On 7. 9. 2016 at 9:52 AM, Salvator said:

I've built a tilt-wing scientific plane for Duna

And today I've made some minor design changes and created a drone version for use on Eve. Because so far I haven't been able to get anything from surface of Eve to orbit...

[elpollodiablo]

8 hours ago, Aegrim said:

In game I honestly can't tell if there's clouds or not. If there are my game may have bugged out because they're stationary if they're there, or too thick to see the surface. We shall investigate further.

They are weird during entry, but seem to work well from orbit and on the surface (at least for me).

I know this because all i did in KSP (yesterday) was ramming Venus's surface. Luckily it wasn't for nothing, the "Benevolent Benefactor" might not have made it, but it's operator at least conquered his irrational phobia (readers of the expanse novels might know what i'm talking about).

In a nutshell: Stock chutes won't work here. I also like the orbital period of 30m seconds before impact

[Aegrim]

4 hours ago, elpollodiablo said:

They are weird during entry, but seem to work well from orbit and on the surface (at least for me).

I used one of the camera mods. I can't remember which one but it has lots of nice filters and let's you save screen shots.

I was thinking I might take a series of them with my voyager probe approaching Jupiter and turn them into a gif. I think they did something like that IRL.

 

EDIT - sorry I read that as "That was a weird entry", like i'd posted something unusual.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Aegrim

[Planetace]

On 9/11/2016 at 10:39 AM, Galacticvoyager said:

I made my first fully working SSTO!

I call it the Kiter, because I was making it for the kite challenge. But when i saw its cargo bay was too small for a kite i thought "screw it, we are getting it into orbit!" And here we are. Also, some eye candy of it orbiting kerbin.

 

Also, its payload was a small satellite. Here it is!

 

Another thing, this was a HUGE challenge for me due to the fact I cant dock and rarely leave the kerbin system

OK! Update of the Kiter.

After 3 test flights, I have pieced together the most efficent path to orbit. Here is it in a detailed list tutorial:

1. Fire up the Kiter and get across the runway.

2. Once clear of runway, pull up to 45* angle. Ascent till 10km

3. Once at 10Km, pull down to a 15* angle and build up as much speed as possible (you usually clear the 1km/s mark by the end of this step.)

4. Once you clear 20km, pull up again for a 45* angle. And start burning until apoapsis is at 75Km.

5. Once you hit the apoapsis, burn until you are at orbit (I usually get an elliptical orbit, oh well. Better than a unstable one! Nothing a probe burn cant fix.)

Edited September 12, 2016 by Planetace

[Corona688]

@Galacticvoyager Nice to see some instructions for modern KSP spaceplanes, that would have been helpful when I started using the RAPIER.  I follow nearly the same procedure for the Lammergeier but I ditched the 45 degree burn, because drag is absolutely hellacious at 45 degrees below 40,000m -- that's a good posture to re-enter in!  I just go 20-25 degrees until it stops heating, burn prograde, and it gets there.

A prograde burn also means you'll travel much faster at apogee, and only need a short burn to circularize.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Corona688

[XB-70A]

I'm waiting a good launch window for my first Eve mission. To past the time I decided to take a look at my first SSTO built like a year and half ago, the XC-70 Comet (named not for the small body but in memory of the splendid deHavilland Comet) :

But it was powered by two fusion engines from Impossible Innovation, in my actual way of "stockalize" everything now it need a bit of refresh and the result was surprising! New vertical surfaces (the old ones were tweakscaled) and two stock aerospikes engines to replace the fusion engines :

Not too expensive and made with less than 80 parts.

She accelerates pretty fast, rotating before the control tower.

Flies pretty well and is surprisingly stable despite this delta configuration, reaching more than 1500 m/s on turbo-ramjets only.

Solely the payload is not interesting with 5 tons max (a full FL-T800 tank). I just need to qualify her on the classical 200 x 200 km orbital rendez-vous, no-refuel and back to KSC.

Edited September 12, 2016 by XB-70A
&@#^% auto-corrector!

[eddiew]

6 hours ago, elpollodiablo said:

In a nutshell: Stock chutes won't work here. I also like the orbital period of 30m seconds before impact

I guess it's 30 minutes if you didn't hit the surface and just went through to the same altitude on the other side of the planet  

 

6 minutes ago, XB-70A said:

Flies pretty well and is surprisingly stable despite this delta configuration, reaching more than 1500 m/s on turbo-ramjets only.

Delta isn't inherently unstable, but the outboard engines can be tricky for rolling. Guess you can drain them into the central fuselage before returning?  

[XB-70A]

Just now, eddiew said:

Delta isn't inherently unstable, but the outboard engines can be tricky for rolling. Guess you can drain them into the central fuselage before returning?  

Absolutely true but like all delta configuration she was pretty unstable at lower speed and when I was close to stall speed, tending to stall on starboard and changing the vertical surfaces has like cured the problem. For the outboard engines configuration it's cool to have proposed a solution but... I don't want to change it, this thing was the first single stage flying brick I ever made like ten days after having started to play KSP and want to keep her in this crazy unlogic style, like many of us rookie players has made at first 

[Mikki]

Well, i went back to a all stock savegame, not even KJR... omg... so many, many struts... omgomg, and wobbly rockets... just can`t wait for 1.2, omg... but stockparts are the best challenge of all, like real life, make the best with the things at hand...
Pushing my all stock interplanetary transfer ship with the last lifterstage, going to test this big heatshield!

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Mikki
cats sure:D

[TopHeavy11]

21 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Today! We boldly go!

  Reveal hidden contents

Ore tanks and Mk0 LF tanks for volume demonstration only. Actual warp drives and positive gravioli inside the nacelles.

 

But what is the disk...and every other aspect of it? .craft file please!

[quasarrgames]

Hello sea carrier! I'm sky carrier! Nice to meet you.