What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Brownhair2]

What is it with me, Arin, and capture burns? I swear, first I have a 6 km/s capture burn, and now I don't have enough delta-v for a Sonnah capture

Screw it, I'm leaving them there. I already have to rescue the Peregrine. Maybe I'll rescue them when I come back with the new Duneshifters.

*sigh*

The MTU Horizon is back! Yay! This is a happy moment! I am not upset!

[LaytheDragon]

Valentina does some astronomy in preparation for the upcoming crewed Mun landings.

Then, she spies on Mortimer, after his talk of "budget cuts".

Bob landed a telescope on the VAB.

[LordFerret]

What I did today? I built and flew a new jet... for about 4 hours, close to half way around Kerbin... only to have the game suddenly crash, hard.

[ThatHomelessGuy]

26 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

What I did today? I built and flew a new jet... for about 4 hours, close to half way around Kerbin... only to have the game suddenly crash, hard.

f5

[paul23]

Decided to combine two tourism-to-the-mun missions, but during design I constantly came up with a 5 stage long pencil that would wobble all around the place, unable to even not crash. So I sucked up my pride and use the good old kerbin saying "more boosters":

 

Then when launching I came to the conclusion that I way over engineered this thing; hitchhikers can store 4 tourists instead of 3, and with 5 tourists I could've done something else. Well now it's a tourist + training mission.

But even for that I way overdesigned it, while on a flyby to the mun I had the following left:

That would mean roughly 2.8k delta-V to lift off and return to kerbin. - Given I wish to keep 800 for kerbin reentry (FAR + DRE means I kind of wish to not go too deep into the atmosphere to lower my orbital energy). How many hops/biomes can I visit with 2k delta-V at the mun? (Oh and limited to "1 day while circling the moon".since after that my oxygen will run out).

[HazelPine]

So...

I was doing a rescue contract. Rescuing Summer Kerman to be exact. I was closing in on to her pod, when:

Is that a cigar shaped UFO?

 

Yep, it is.

 

I'll leave her where she is for now, there is no exit hatch on her UFO... (mission wasted :D)   Once I have the claw I'll get her down.

http://i.imgur.com/4ePObJB.gifv

Edited November 14, 2016 by Pine

[Clipperride]

After deciding my original Mun Hopper (with in orbital refuelling stage) was a little too marginal for my liking - 

I decided to build something with a little more leeway for Biome hopping.  It was hoped that this configuration would allow for a last minute change of landing location should a steep slope appear.

It has a return to Kerbin section at the top with the lander below.  Originally named "Friendship 4", in honour of the original Kerbanauts, Jeb (who was somewhat annoyed that this mission, once again, required the scientific skill of Bob rather than his own unique skill set) sneaked in, just before the fairing was fitted, with a can of spray paint and re-christened it "Bibbly Bobbly Bookins".  Sadly no one noticed as the vehicle was transferred to the launch pad

With various bits and bobs still in Munar orbit after previous attempts at building an effective Biome Hopper, the CLAW was also dispatched to mop up the remaining fuel before docking with the refuelling stage from my last mission.

 

Once all the pieces of this hodge-podge project were assembled, it was time to send Bob down to the Muns surface to start the science project

Bob made several successful landings in different biomes, collecting data and ignoring Jebs taunts over the relay satellites. The attached Experiment Storage Pod allows for a "collect all" data action group.  Even though "collect all" appears on the command modules list of actions, it doesn't seem to work out in the field.

We are pleased to report that, on each return to orbit to refuel, Bob was able to dock with the refuel stage within half an orbit of liftoff.  With much science collected, it was time to transfer it over to the return vehicle, undock and then use the attached probe core to redock the lander ready for the scheduled arrival of the orbital Science lab.

The return trip was looking nominal until some "time warp weirdness" occurred.  After setting the apoapsis to 29,503 m Bob came out of time warp at around 200 km altitude to jettison the tank and engine to reveal the heat shied.  Hitting the ">" key, Bob waited for the 70,000 m re-entry interface only to see it speed past.  By the time control was regained, the returning ship was well past apoapsis and heading back out to Munar distance.  With the only control being down to the reaction wheels, he had to spend a couple of days drifting until returning back to Kerbin.  This time everything went to plan and medals and snacks were handed out for close on 2000 science points.  Even Jeb seemed pleased that several new parts will be available after this science haul.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Clipperride

[Brownhair2]

44 minutes ago, Pine said:

I'll leave her where she is for now, there is no exit hatch on her UFO... (mission wasted :D)   Once I have the claw I'll get her down.

Where is she if there are no hatches? A Mk 1 crew cabin?

---

Alright, so I have two unused Duneshifters on the Horizon. And we know now that the Duneshifters are useless on Arin. Which was the only place I planned on using them...

Hmm...

Let's visit Serran!

Nevermind. Revert!

Worst part is I actually had that. It's just that my front landing gear decided it didn't want to land today. Rear landing gear was fine of course. I'm not going to waste another half an hour to try again however.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Brownhair2

[HazelPine]

@Brownhair2 KSP can spawn craft with crew inside, even if there is no hatch on the craft.

 

Also, I finished making my space station! Just need to get a crew up there now, but that's easy compared to launching this thing with the low tech I have right now!

 

[Brownhair2]

1 hour ago, Pine said:

@Brownhair2 KSP can spawn craft with crew inside, even if there is no hatch on the craft.

That seems a bit cruel

[JadeOfMaar]

A descendant, semi-reincarnate vessel lights the runway afire for Fort NOX. It's not an SSTO but with a little more LF, an RCS tank and a pair of NERVs it can operate in space. Siecie and Bill enjoy the maiden flight of the NOX Palladium, doing a lap around Gael, overshooting KSC but with enough fuel to spare to turn and land somewhere proper, they made it back to KSC. Unlike its ancestor the Mahha Roku and the flagship the NOX Crown, this design skips out on OPT parts entirely.

http://imgur.com/a/6RzO5

 

[LaytheDragon]

_{(Extra images and detail in spoilers)}

Bob watches a rocket launch using his VAB Telescope.

It is a probe. Destined to complete some fun Minmus temperature surveys, and to test the No-Explode SciPod 2.0, complete with no probe core in the airstream that causes the entire science pod to explode, an inline parachute helping keep the mass concentrated at the shield, and a docking port.

Spoiler

(the last and only probed mission to the Mun, the first mission utilizing the original SciPod, was lucky. After landing at two locations, I thought there wouldn't be enough fuel, but there turned out to be more than enough to land at another location before the science-less return stage was fired, so I used half of that last stage's fuel to circularize a 70 km orbit before Kerbin reentry, thus actually slowing the pod down below no-heatshield-necessary levels.)

The old SciPod.

The probe burns for a nice, low Kerbin orbit, using its three Ant thrusters.

(this is a career save with quicksaves enabled but science, reputation, and funds on 20%, and I haven't unlocked Spider thrusters (or reaction wheels, or plane parts, or rockomax-sized fuel tanks to accompany the unlocked engines) yet)

Spoiler

Reentry of the launcher stage, luckily at a safe velocity.

The launch stage parachutes down to recoverable safety.

Now, the probe departs for Minmus.

Spoiler

Beauty shots. The Mystery Goo is opened here for some leftover data never collected before.

The probe has arrived at Minmus, clearing up the orbital temperature survey half of the main survey contract.

  beep Starting descent beep

The probe plunges into the dusty crevice, where a temperature survey below 3300 meters above sea level is required. It dips just below the maximum altitude for data collection, but then boosts out, lacking the fuel to completely slow all sideways velocity and land.

The probe narrowly misses the surface on its ascent by a few meters.

\

Spoiler

Beauty shot during the Mun encounter boosting the probe home.

 

The probe decouples from its empty fuel stage, and is prepared, with the antennas retracted, for reentry.

Spoiler

The probe core is ejected off the top just in time, the probe core section now exploding from the extreme heat created from reentering straight from Minmus.

=

Reentry of the new SciPod 2.0 commences, with parts of the purposefully-ejected probe core piece exploding in the background.

Spoiler

Reentry is successful, and the parachutes open.

The new probe core drifts successfully towards the surface of Kerbin, with its mission complete.

Edited November 14, 2016 by LaytheDragon

[Cydonian Monk]

Not exactly today, but on Friday I got (almost) everything updated to KSP v1.2.1. I then proceeded to spend a couple hours playing around with this Mün Lander Shuttle Rover Thingy that doesn't yet have a name. (I'm leaning towards Iron....) I'm so very happy the wheel clipping bug finally got fixed. This uses four small wheels as rear-wheel drive, and two of the steerable first-tier aircraft wheels at the front. Quite honestly the first time I've ever found a use for those.

It's not meant for heavy rovering, intended instead for delivering up to 10 kerbals to a base that's (hopefully) at a relatively flat location. There's a pair of LV-909s hidden underneath the cabin, and the two orange t-shirt launcher thrusters on the back are powerful enough to shove it over any hills its meagre wheels can't hack.

Bonus: It doubles as a boat. Y'know, for all that water that's not on the Mün.

 

Yesterday I spent entirely too much time on Twitch in RSS/RO working on kOS scripts in what had to be one of the world's most boring streams. Lots of random bad hackery as I tried to stubbornly force my code to do things it isn't meant to do. Also learned some of my script designs are pretty terrible. Still moving towards a generic launch script, something I think is almost done. Latest version even supports zero-lift maneuvers in RSS/RO, sort of. Not entirely certain my pitch-over maneuver is quite right yet, and there's still a bug with the final orbital insertion that causes it to run away to the stars. Minor stuff, though.

This morning I ported Forgotten Space Program to KSP v1.2.1... replacing many of the old RT antennas with their new stock equivalents, etc. Seems to have gone quite well. At least the same number of ships are there as there were in 1.1.3, so I don't think I lost anything. Hopefully that'll get underway in earnest this upcoming week.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Galileo]

 I absolutely nailed it

Edited November 14, 2016 by Galileo

[JadeOfMaar]

@Galileo Lol! Of all places.

Meanwhile on Gratian...

These pics really made me start to feel to cover my mouth.

[Galileo]

1 minute ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@Galileo Lol! Of all places.
Meanwhile on Gratian...
These pics really made me start to feel to cover my mouth.

 

OHHHHHH looks even better with your scratched sunflare!

Edited November 14, 2016 by Galileo

[Brownhair2]

So the Amber arrived at Laythe, and used a gravity assist with Derso to reduce the capture burn delta-v. Which gives me plenty of time to admire how much Derso looks like an eye:

Ah yes, I can totally see why someone would think this looks like an eye. I can almost feel it glaring at me! If looks could kill! Yes, I very much enjoyed this opportunity to see firsthand how much Derso looks like an eye [/passive-aggressive rant]

But alas, good moments cannot last. It's time to land one of the Waders!

And lo and behold, I actually did it! Without any parts being destroyed too! Impressive!

Too bad it flipped over.

Ok, let's try again...

It flipped over. Again.

FINALLY, after about TEN TRIES, I have FINALLY managed to land this thing. Jeez...

Actually it flipped over again, I just did a complete somersault. Gymnastics: saving missions since [arbitrary date]

Alright, I'm done for the day. This was stressful.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Brownhair2

[Galileo]

@JadeOfMaar I didnt just fix the trees and boulders on Tellumo.. I..err.. made them.. well, take a look

 

Look very closely at this one

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Galileo

[JadeOfMaar]

BIG S™ foliage! @Galileo

Spoiler

As if colliding with normal sized trees and rocks wasn't scary enough.

 

[Galileo]

1 minute ago, JadeOfMaar said:

BIG S™ foliage! @Galileo

  Hide contents

As if colliding with normal sized trees and rocks wasn't scary enough.

 

*insert evil laugh* im going to keep it that way.. looks pretty epic

[Curveball Anders]

Got a contract to rescue some poor soon-to-be colleague from the surface of Minmus.

Sure thing, free Kerbonauts is always worth it and with a lander equipped station in orbit it should be a peanut.

Ok, it was at the poles so a bit (86 deg) inclination change but still no issue.

Coming in to land close but not on top of the wreck when physics for the wreck kicks in, ejecting the kerbal and sending her shooting straight up at quite some lick.

Well, what goes up must come down as Wernher is so fond of saying, I land and wait for the return of my victim rescuee.

Sure enough, down she comes (luckily it is Minmus so the fall isn't very fast). As she comes down I notice that she's drifted closer to my safe landing site, and drifting closer, and closer ...

In the end she came down 2 meters off the ladder ....

A slight hilarious expedition, but the most hilarious was that the spontaneously airborne kerbal was named Naca ...

 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Curveball Anders

[Big Kerbie]

Did a few minor contracts for stuff I already had in orbit(s). Rescued a stranded kerbalnaut in LKO.  Built, launched, and landed my MPL hopper base on the Mun and Minmus.

I am very happy that it worked as well as it did.  The Mun Science Base doesn't have nearly enough solar panels. It's enough to keep it alive, but just barely. No research at night.  I added four more retractable panels to the Minmus Science base.

I won't start hopping with the bases until they get done with their first pile of science. Then on to another biome and do it all over again. The bases were designed to land and never return to Kerbin. I will have to send a return vehicle to each base once they are out of fuel.

As the program sits, 9 Kerbals are off the planet. No losses. 

[ROXunreal]

The Minmus Prospector station is fully operational, after two flights more than planned. The first flight brought the core module, the second one the Cupola power module and life support module. The later was installed successfully, but the solar panels on the Cupola broke somewhere along the way (likely during launch, noticed when I rendezvoused of course), so mission not complete. Then when we brought a new separate power module, we had no antenna so mission not complete (had an RT antenna but the contracts recognize only the stock ones). The last flight brought a stock antenna as well as a surface scanner merged with a docking module for small craft (featuring two Jr. Clamp-o-trons for pods docking).

 

The station is currently manned by a pilot and a scientist, the plan is to bring more scientists and StationScience parts, as well as mining parts/craft when I unlock them because the prime purpose of this station will be a fuel depot for manned interplanetary flights.

Core module launch

Prior to jettison of second stage rockets and continuing to Minmus with the transfer stage.

Core module arrives at Minmus and is soon after set into a ~100k m polar orbit.

After the life support and power modules were installed, the latest module in the process of docking

Station as it is now

During the power module delivery we had a secondary mission Minmus orbit: the guys whom fund us were again, just like with the Mun, being little demand making whiners and said "Hurr hurr you totally can't bring a craft that was on Minmus back to Kerbin". So we decided to salvage the abandoned Grasshopper lander from the Apollo-like mission in which the crew left in a command module, the lander being intended to crash into Minmus but due to a control error ending up in an oscillating orbit until running out of fuel. So without having to make another, new landing, we just salvaged this module and brought it back to Kerbin so the guys would shut up.

 

Edited November 14, 2016 by ROXunreal

[LordFerret]

14 hours ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

f5

I don't use quicksave/recall, at all, ever. I'll revert to the VAB if I'm still on the pad and have forgotten something, but once it's in the air - it either flies, or it doesn't.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, 1.5 to go) This past weekend started off reasonably busy. I began on Friday by flying an Auk II spaceplane to orbit with the intent of picking up the eight passengers aboard Next Objective in LKO. I completely botched the timing of the ascent, however, and Next Objective wound up completely on the other side of Kerbin. With only 100 m/s of delta-V left in the Auk and a lack of confidence in my ability to close the gap on RCS alone, I ultimately chose to launch a second Auk. The second flight was more successful, and the plane had one of the nicest overall approaches and landings I've had with that particular craft, with the only complaint being that I came in left of center at KSC 09. No other problems there and two contracts cleared in the process. Still need to decide what to do with the other Auk; I might just have to land it empty so I can recoup most of the losses on that flight. Fuel's cheap enough. I had sufficient money earned from the tourists coming in that I felt comfortable upgrading my Tracking Station to Level 3. Only have the Admin building left to go at this point.

With an abundance of tourist contracts having built up and two contracts to put stations in orbit of Kerbin and Mün (but with the facilities I wanted for Mün indicated for Kerbin and vice versa), I decided to try and kill several birds in a single stone. I designed and launched the Munport 7 core module satisfying the conditions of both station contracts, loading it up to the gills with tourists. Launch was successful, and after staying in LKO long enough to satisfy the conditions of the Kerbin contract, I went ahead and sent it onto Mün, satisfying the conditions of that contract as well. I now have an orbital refinery platform and science lab around Mün, and I'm ready to begin refueling operations as soon as I can get them started. 

Next, since I was a hundred points short of being able to unlock one of the four remaining nodes on my tech tree, I futzed around a bit with the Scimobile to pick up some readings around KSC, adding more instruments and replacing the propulsion system with some rover wheels. I wound up blowing the thing near the Astronaut Center but enough of the front end was still intact for me to drag the nose to the Administration Building and take readings there, after taking readings near the Spaceplane Hangar. I collected the hundred sci I needed for the node. I chose to unlock the big engines, leaving the S3-14400 tank, ion engines and KAS electromagnet left to unlock. I need 1650 science to finish my tech tree at this point.

I began my day on Saturday with an early junk retrieval mission with a Bill Clinton 7 craft; the module to be retrieved turned out to be a spent Hammer booster, easily within the Clinton's capabilities. The module was retrieved and the contract replaced with an orbital rescue contract.

With two LKO rescues in the pipe, I began thinking again about the Auk I spaceplane. I realized that I had over-gummed the works on that craft as a pure rescue plane, and decided to pull a redesign job using some of the calculations I've done recently specifically for RAPIER engines. I changed the craft to a dual engine plane and calculated that it needed more fuel, so I used the capabilities of B9 Procedural Wings to put extra fuel in the wings. The re-design job was very successful, with the plane making orbit easily on the first try and successfully completing both rescue missions. I did botch the landing rather badly, hitting the airbrakes too hard too soon, causing the plane to stall and slam into the Runway, destroying both engines in the process. Otherwise the landing was okay - the issue there was pure "pilot error". Next time I'll be more careful. Meantime, I've got another plane in my fleet, and renewed hope for a redesign of the Auk III tanker craft...

After the Auk I flight I decided to dock up the existing Spamcan craft in Mün orbit to Munport. Two of the craft had sufficient delta-V available to make successful rendezvouses and docking maneuvers. The third Spamcan - the original craft - didn't have docking abilities so I was going to terminate it but decided to check it anyway for available resources. Good thing I did - there were two tourists aboard that had been there for who knew how long. Dispatched one of the other Spamcans to go pick them up and take them on to Munport. The original Spamcan has now been terminated and I have two landers standing by at Munport. If only either of them had any fuel, I could start sending down the thirteen tourists at Munport...

Yesterday my wife had me busy cleaning our house, so I didn't have a lot of time to play. With the need to begin a refueling operation evident, I spent what time I had in my litterbox working on a surface refinery craft, which I dubbed Piper Alpha 7. Testing on Kerbin was very promising, with the craft filling up its ore, RCS and LF/LOX storage tanks within two game hours. I designed a booster to send it to Mün only to come up about 300 m/s short of what it needed for a successful Münar landing. I'll be redesigning the craft today to include a dedicated transfer stage. One thing's for sure - it will definitely set new records for mass (calculating about a thousand tonnes) and cost (estimating about √750k) for this career save. It's probably a good thing I unlocked those big engines. Getting the cash might be a good deal trickier...