What did you do in KSP1 today?

[MagicFireCaster]

11 minutes ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

You have actually given me an Idea for some cool deployments I wanted to do around Kerbin. I think the virgin galactic style of delivery to orbit is somewhat of a step in the wrong direction but a valid exercise in space exploration and future transport.

Will look foward to it! 

[Iqilipi]

Landed on the Slopes of Minmus.

[Martian Emigrant]

Hello all Kerbean.

Today I got Valentina back to Kerbin as promissed.

Yesterday I got her to Duna on a very small lander.

Raise your hand everyone with "Hold me closer tiny lander" stuck in their head.

 

Today I got her home.

I ashamed to say I had to do it twice. Everything that could go wrong went wrong on the trip. I can't say for sure but I think it all had to do with my departure in the first place.

But everything went right on the second try.

Go figure.

 

ME

 

[flatbear]

did some more spaceplane tinkering.  Does anyone know how to get a normal space plane to go to the mun single staged?  I can do up to 120k circular kerbin orbit but not much further

 

 

[ThatHomelessGuy]

3 minutes ago, flatbear said:

did some more spaceplane tinkering.  Does anyone know how to get a normal space plane to go to the mun single staged?  I can do up to 120k circular kerbin orbit but not much further

Use air breathing engines and don't use your afterburners off the runway. Let it climb naturally and use the afterburners at high altitude to give you that orbital isertion boost and then break atmo however you normally do. That's how I normally do and that's if I use the afterburners. Usually I just fly as high and fast as I can with atmo engines and then use some sort of rocket motor to push me into orbit. You could also use some of that cargo bay to store an extra can of boom juice for the journey but that is if you just want to send the plane. I haven't built one in a while but I always used to keep a pair of nuclear engines on board just for trips like that but My last one was a massive deltawing that could make it to jool or duna and back with enough boom juice to do a lap of kerbin with an empty cargo bay and was still capable of a powered landing with a full one.

 

[flatbear]

Just now, ThatHomelessGuy said:

Use air breathing engines and don't use your afterburners off the runway. Let it climb naturally and use the afterburners at high altitude to give you that orbital isertion boost and then break atmo however you normally do. That's how I normally do and that's if I use the afterburners. Usually I just fly as high and fast as I can with atmo engines and then use some sort of rocket motor to push me into orbit. You could also use some of that cargo bay to store an extra can of boom juice for the journey but that is if you just want to send the plane. I haven't built one in a while but I always used to keep a pair of nuclear engines on board just for trips like that but My last one was a massive deltawing that could make it to jool or duna and back with enough boom juice to do a lap of kerbin with an empty cargo bay and was still capable of a powered landing with a full one.

 

are afterburners just full throttle? or is it a separate mode?  I usually skim low to get the most velocity out of the airbreathing engines until I get to 700m/s then pull sharply up as everyone passes out from g's then I have enough velocity to carry me up until I get to closed cycle altitude.  When I try to go high with air burning rapiers, I usually get up to 15000m but with no velocity and when the engines choke out, its hard to get up to closed cycle altitude.

[ThatHomelessGuy]

22 minutes ago, flatbear said:

are afterburners just full throttle? or is it a separate mode?  I usually skim low to get the most velocity out of the airbreathing engines until I get to 700m/s then pull sharply up as everyone passes out from g's then I have enough velocity to carry me up until I get to closed cycle altitude.  When I try to go high with air burning rapiers, I usually get up to 15000m but with no velocity and when the engines choke out, its hard to get up to closed cycle altitude.

Afterburners are a mode for certain engines. I think they are called afterburners actually. Unless it's a mod Item but I'm pretty sure there is a stock afterburner. It chews up fuel but it gives you a nice boost of speed. First time I tried them it was under 1000m above sea level and the atmosphere was so soupy the plane ripped itself apart and tried to burn up in the atmosphere.

I did have a lot of them to be fair though.

Edited October 18, 2016 by ThatHomelessGuy

[flatbear]

1 hour ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

Afterburners are a mode for certain engines. I think they are called afterburners actually. Unless it's a mod Item but I'm pretty sure there is a stock afterburner. It chews up fuel but it gives you a nice boost of speed. First time I tried them it was under 1000m above sea level and the atmosphere was so soupy the plane ripped itself apart and tried to burn up in the atmosphere.

I did have a lot of them to be fair though.

ah ok, to go to the mun or minmus, do you usually need orbital refueling for a ssto?

[ThatHomelessGuy]

It's not uncommon I guess. I made mine to go to and from various stations and planets so it was made for massive payloads and had it's own monster tanks. That thing barely fit on the runway though and while it was used to deliver fuel payloads to different stations I did refuel in orbit If I planned a huge mission like a grand tour or to refuel edgeworld stations I'd set up around the kerbol system.

Back on topic I launched a comsat today and it took a few tries but I figured out how to avoid leaving the orbital insertion stage in orbit without burning it up completely so I can recover the engines safely.

[Guest]

Enjoying the stock career save so far. I built a crew shuttle once I unlocked the three-Kerbal capsule that I really like, I call it the "Bayern" after the Traveller 2300 supplement (what popped into my head). The crew shuttle itself isn't really all that special, it's the service module which has become my default orbital tug, doing things like pushing station components around and bringing fuel for rescues. I love the Porkjet parts, the 303 is a fantastic little engine. The launcher from the Bayern is pretty nice itself, I call it "Athena" (another random pick) and it brings some 13~17 tons to orbit depending on what SRMs you slap on it. Two Thuds provide roll control (if you let them do anything else the rocket gets a bit squirreley). I've used it for pretty much all my recent missions, building a station, adding more Kerbals to the team, etc...

[Draco T stand-up guy]

Couldn't find an anomaly upon the Mun so I decided to create my own:

Spoiler

Yeah, I crashed

 

[DunaRocketeer]

On 03/10/2016 at 4:21 AM, fourfa said:

I've been playing with a lot of spaceplanes lately.  I started really diving into efficiency and drag, AeroGUI etc, and that led to designs that hide as much as possible inside cargo bays.  The one exception has been the landing gear, which are always visible externally and exposed to drag.  I wondered what a usable design that fixes that would look like?  That led here:

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

I call it the Pantsplane.  I had tried out hiding gear on small SSTOs inside the inline docking ports, which doesn't actually occlude drag, and gives you a terribly narrow track width anyway.  So I needed two side-by-side cargo bays, and that required a lot of the Mk2 bicouplers or 'pants.'  Kind of a fun exercise.  It ended up basically looking like my RaPTOR SSTO mainly because I think it's pretty.

I was inspired by your creative use of Mk2 bicouplers to create a high performance jet:

I also perfected the SSTO I started working on a week or so ago:

Edited October 18, 2016 by DunaRocketeer

[capi3101]

9 hours ago, flatbear said:

Does anyone know how to get a normal space plane to go to the mun single staged?  I can do up to 120k circular kerbin orbit but not much further

I'd need more details about what exactly you want to do - are you just wanting to visit Mün or are you wanting to land the plane, etc. Short story is that you'll need a set of engines and fuel tanks dedicated to handling the part of the flight where you have to treat your craft as a rocket and not as a plane. By which I mean it's going to have to have at least 1,375 m/s of delta-V once it's in rocket mode to get it to Münar orbit and back, about 2,500 if you use the same engine set for the final portion of the ascent (which would make sense to do), and roughly 4,000 if you want to try and land the sucker (which I've never done; strikes me that a set of downward pointing rockets would be necessary here, or maybe an SVTOL setup like Serenity if you've got Infernal Robotics, assuming you don't want to set the plane down on Mün on its tail).

I have put a spaceplane in orbit of Mün before and sent it back for landing at KSC 09. Even docked it to a space station in Münar orbit on the same trip. Long time ago now - version 0.23, before my FAR days. When Kerbals were young and intakes sucked...

 

(1.1.3) Yesterday I went through my "mod pre-flight" for 1.2. Of the thirty or so that I play with, ten haven't been updated for 1.2 just yet. Three of those are what I consider crucial mods, so I'm sticking with 1.1.3 for the time being still.

Last night I was in my laptop save knocking out satellite contracts while watching my two younger children. Went ahead and built a Beep-Beep 7 craft for that particular save and sent a pair of them to do contracts in vicinity of Mün, one in a polar orbit and the other in a random orbit. Had a couple of other satellite contracts for Kerbin as well but the original design didn't include goo containers, so I had to add those before I went for the lower-hanging fruit. I did have a single contract for a satellite around Kerbin that didn't require goo...out of three. Seemed easier to just redesign the craft than to go eenie-meenie-miney-mo and pray I guessed right...

Also had a pair of rescue contracts I performed. Got another high-altitude contract that's Mün-bound and like an idiot I've decided to try the high-altitude intercept before it reaches Mün yet again. You think I would've learned from the escapades I had with Juluna...

Not much else. Did some parts testing. Got the Launchpad upgraded to Level 3, and I'm thinking the time has come for Bob to visit Mün for science. Or maybe for Juluna to visit Minmus - same reason, but she's already got Mün experience.

Edited October 18, 2016 by capi3101

[MagicFireCaster]

11 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

 

 

 

Congrats!

Also is that a alien "LMAO" girl flag, or a kebal girl flag? 

[JadeOfMaar]

The first round of potato tagging is concluded with senior crew Valentina and Sigmund having each named a Dresteroid after themselves. They descend from high orbit and plan their rendzvous with the main ship. The plans change slightly as things get hairy with the junior crew of Nancy and Munney Kerman whom, after launching from near Dres' canyon, must summon the ship into low orbit to retrieve themselves and the lander which has nearly exhausted all its LF and most Monopropellant just to return to orbit.

Everyone unites finally to share logs, snacks, phone home, and snooze in the comfort of a large vehicle after a few hundred days sitting in landers/koasters.

Back at home, Fort NOX fastens Jebediah's hands and buttocks to experimental spaceplanes that make Mach 5, have enough TWR with nukes alone to climb into space and require no aftermarket parts. Since no one can hold a pen and a steering wheel at the same time, however, Bob tags along and does the logging. Their lives hang on the line as they have to save fuel in the back of the craft after reentry to keep impact force away from the cockpit. Splashing down at ~60m/s Bob's logs affectionately end with "This one has a fat SAS."

 

[MagicFireCaster]

Landed a mining SSTO on minmus!

[Fearless Son]

Over the weekend I did some boring early career stuff.  Did a flyby of the Mun.  Landed a 30-part, low-tech plane on the island airfield.  Rescued three Kerbals from Kerbin orbit.  Reinvested funds in my facilities, unlocked some basic technology nodes.  That sort of thing.  

Noting where the first line of communications contact back to Kerbin goes, always to the same specific sites around the planet.  Flirting with the idea of following these lines back to their origin to see if there are actual dishes out there I could visit.  

[eddiew]

And spiralling inwards towards Urlum, we encounter a moon that seems to be made of cheese... dark cheese, but cheese nonetheless. 

Unfortunately mission control insisted that nobody lift their visor to try a nibble.

14 hours ago, flatbear said:

did some more spaceplane tinkering.  Does anyone know how to get a normal space plane to go to the mun single staged?  I can do up to 120k circular kerbin orbit but not much further

Short version; reach LKO with 4km/s in the tanks and a TWR of about 0.2 on Kerbin - by the time you're in orbit of Mun, you'll have enough TWR to set down safely.

Long version... it's a big ask for stock parts. Not going to say it's impossible, but it's challenging. Expect to build a large vehicle, and expect it to absolutely require the efficiency of nuclear engines. Which are heavy and low thrust. Hence the challenge   

As yet, I don't believe I've seen a stock VTOL spaceplace than can get to Mun and back, so you'll also need to consider things like landing on the tail of the plane, meaning you need to have a plan for how to bring the nose down gently (vernors?) and lift it up again for when you want to take off.

 

Edited October 18, 2016 by eddiew

[Guest]

I'm planning a grand tour of the Jool system in my no-labs career. I think I've got a craft that can do it, or close at least -- I will trial it on Duna. As a first for me, my lander isn't kerbaled: instead, I made an ultralight probe lander with all the science it can carry -- not Science Jr or Mystery Goo due to weight and no reusability -- and will remote-control it from a Mk 2 command pod. The crew on that will be two pilots and a scientist, and the orbiter module will carry a Science Jr and Mystery Goo.

How this works:

At top there's a 1.25 m heat shield, capped with a conical part that has four radial 'chutes on it. This is docked to the lander. The lander has a detachable tail made of octagonal struts and simple fins. This is inside a fairing stuck to the nose of the Mk 2 command pod.

First I want to aerocapture the whole assembly. The heat shield will do nicely for that.

Then, when it's time to land, I will go into a suborbital trajectory with the whole assembly, drop the lander, and burn back to safe orbit with the orbiter. It will stay within comms range of the lander as it goes down... I hope. 

During re-entry, the tail will stabilise the probe, which is going in heat shield first: it won't flip out during the comms blackout. When it ends and I've slowed down enough to deploy the chutes, I'll jettison the tail, which will make aero forces flip the lander around so it's going legs-first. Then pop the chutes and extend the legs, and float down to the surface, with a touch of retro-rockets at the end. 

The "turban" will be jettisoned on the surface, and we'll burn off the rock, RV with the orbiter, refuel, and do more adventures -- in the Duna system that'll mean Ike since I no longer have the 'chutes needed for a second Duna landing. In the Jool system, there are lots of places to go. 

When it's time to return to Kerbin, I'll say a fond farewell to the probe and go back with just the command pod and booster. 

Remaining research questions:

• Does Miniproob have enough dV to get off Laythe?
• Is the 1.25 m heat shield sufficient for aerocapture off Jool, or do I need to use the 2.5 m one?

[Martian Emigrant]

5 hours ago, MagicFireCaster said:

Congrats!

Also is that a alien "LMAO" girl flag, or a kebal girl flag? 

What?

IDK

I just googled "Alien pinup" cause I wanted some form of "Nose Art" for the ships.

Go ahead try. I can't post that cause some of them might be NSFW.

Copied one I liked (Edit: And would look like a Pinup for a Kerbal) and made my own flag with it.

There are of course more to have as this is the Internet.

 

ME

Edited October 18, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Martian Emigrant]

19 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

.......

Does Miniproob have enough dV to get off Laythe?

.......

Not sure about the other question there.... But isn’t it that if it works for Kerbin in works for laythe?

Laythe:

Atmospheric Pressure 60.7950 kPa

0.6 atm

Atmospheric height 50 000 m

Surface gravity 7.85 m/s2 (0.8 g)

Kerbin:

Atmospheric Pressure 101.325 kPa

1 atm

Atmospheric height 70 000 m

Surface gravity 9.81 m/s2 (1 g)

Laythe is a little litle lighter and as a little less air.

ME

[LaytheDragon]

With 1.2 now officially out, I began to continue my 20% science, funds, and reputation career save. The first thing to do was put the stayputnik probe core on the Vacuum Vortex ship at Minmus in hibernation, now that this feature was available and Kerzer in control rather than the probe core. With that, I landed Kerzer Kerman on Minmus, with him discovering with unusual joy that flags that are pushed over can be moved, too, like very light parts. 

After heading home, I used the science to unlock the skipper engine's 90 science node. I then built a craft, the Aemestrous (the name is named after nothing at all; it is just an original name), with the new fuel flow mechanic (no fuel ducts, which I haven't unlocked yet) to have over 3/4 of a Jumbo 64's worth of fuel with a skipper, in a clump of 1.25 tanks radially mounted on the center 1.25 meter stack. The design mostly stayed the same for the vacuum craft, though the newer untested version has minor improvements to it.

With this, Valentina flew by the Mun for the explore contract,

before I took a break to re-install visual mods, and then headed Val to Minmus.

 

In the middle of this, I also took a break, in Sandbox, to create a new 3-engine variation of the PocketSub, that I have planned the creation of since 1.1 prerelease. Billy-Bobfrey in particular didn't like it's cramped cockpit.

 

Finally, I used my new left-over Minmus science from the last two missions to research the fixed solar panel tech, and to research the Oscar B, Ant, and Spark tech. To not make that research go to waste, I produced a satellite to launch to keostationary orbit for communications relaying. The first one didn't have the fuel for much more than an apoapsis half-way to keostationary, and a low periapsis, but 4 handy "Flea" boosters on the bottom gave the second satellite enough fuel for keostationary, with half of its fuel to spare. 

I would've used the much lighter stayputnik probe core, but the probe launcher stage didn't have enough control authority and stability (the launcher could use some struts, which I don't have unlocked yet) to not have stability assist.

By the way, Squad added a great new Ant plume to stock!

(note: most of this was done over the weekend or yesterday, and none of it today, but I will start playing KSP after posting this post)

[eddiew]

Ok, Polta... Polta is nice. Of the four moons of Urlum, this is the one the crew would have liked to have a rover to explore better. Lovely colour, gentle terrain, and just-right gravity, they could probably have covered half a dozen biomes in a Telemachus class rover.

...but nah. Surface samples obtained, docked to the mothership, and homeward bound!

1 hour ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Not sure about the other question there.... But isn’t it that if it works for Kerbin in works for laythe?

The biggest difference I find is that the upper atmosphere of Laythe is relatively thick. At 50km you just slam into a wall of heat, with no ramp-up time, and it can catch you out if you're not angled right.

But yeah, in my experience, if it gets off Kerbin, it gets off Laythe too - assuming you can find enough of a runway to get off the ground at all.

[RX2000]

5 hours ago, Fearless Son said:

Flirting with the idea of following these lines back to their origin to see if there are actual dishes out there I could visit.  

Spoiler Alert!.......

There are.

[spikeyhat09]