What did you do in KSP1 today?

[loch.ness]

After rebuilding my Saturn V full suite I went back to test it again.

Here is "Apollo 12" at lift off (Its my second flight but since this will be my second landing it got named 12).  I'm unhappy with the tanks I used to transition from S2 to S3 so I'll be tweaking that a bit.  Its very wobbly with SAS on but it flights straight and nice with SAS off and gravity turns well.  It can lift at 80% throttle but I use 100% to get it prograde and stable from wobbling and then back off to 80% once its flying straight and SAS is off for a nice gravity turn.  I probably should lower it further for a more efficient launch but it works very well right now.

I need to adjust the decoupling force on S1 seperation.  It doesn't break as nicely as I want it to.

S2 separation works perfectly however.  Here the Saturn stages are giving enough clearance to allow the upper stage engine to light.  The engine lights 2-3 times (1st, complete orbit.  2nd, set course for Mun.  3rd, redirect to munar impact).

The way game physics works I can extract the LEM without loosing the Fairings, this allows me to pretend that they were on hinges the whole time.

The LEM is now balanced where I want it to be.  I had exactly enough fuel to get from a 45x47 orbit on Mun to a stable landing (I ran out of fuel at about 10m off the ground).  On landing I investigated my fuel reserves and found that 2/8 of my decent tank/sets were not properly connected to the engine.  That gives me enough margin for error that I could do targeted landing or sloppy burns and be happy.

The additional side tanks on the Ascent stage allowed me to rendezvous with the CSM at 45x45 without any orbital maneuvers on the CSM at all - I has some spare fuel in the tanks too for other operations.  I'm pretty happy with my LEM desgin as it is.  I'm not sure how similar Ike is to Mun but I'm thinking that I'd need little changes to use this design on Ike.  Similar with the Apollo CSM.

 

[Mikki]

I landed back on Laythe, Year 33. I decided to have Laythe permanently inhabitated by Kerbalkind, yessssss 
Had a hard time to find a long even flat with sufficient ore and somehow close to the equator, inclination changes are very expensive for the SSTO, but at least, i found a runway... selected a place near my first landing some years ago, with more than 6% ore yield in the soil 

Giant LH2 tug with the SSTO on top, braking with brute nuclear force...

Gonna rove around and find a nice place to settle down 


 

Edited December 3, 2016 by Mikki
many, many typos...8D

[NSEP]

12 hours ago, The Raging Sandwich said:

If you don;t know already, screenshots are F1.

I know, but i cant publish it since my internet does not work in my room.

[DunaRocketeer]

On 30/11/2016 at 11:28 PM, eloquentJane said:

I have been testing the first space shuttle for my long-term career. With it, I move closer towards the end-game goal of full reusability. More details here.

I'm wondering if it's possible to stick small stability fins on the base of the booster, jettison the nosecone to reveal a heat shield, and parachute the booster into the ocean? It wouldn't give you the full recovery bonus, but for an early-mid game design it might be worth a try.

[septemberWaves]

28 minutes ago, DunaRocketeer said:

I'm wondering if it's possible to stick small stability fins on the base of the booster, jettison the nosecone to reveal a heat shield, and parachute the booster into the ocean? It wouldn't give you the full recovery bonus, but for an early-mid game design it might be worth a try.

It's definitely doable, but the booster is so cheap that it's not really worth the extra effort. The shuttle is the expensive component (I think it's about 60% of the total cost of the launch) and the whole thing costs under 12000 funds per kerbal (not including recovery, which should cut that down to under 6000 per kerbal). And plus, I designed it to fit in with my long-term career game, so there's not a whole lot of recoverability in the early game even where it is theoretically possible - this is really just for a sense of realism with gradual technological development (which is the same reason I have yet to land on the Mun or Minmus in that playthrough).

Future shuttle systems will introduce recovery systems like this, but they will be designed for a higher tech level.

Edited December 3, 2016 by eloquentJane

[Halfdan]

since the buran project was a success, and a can now transport bigger ammounts of crew into orbit, i have now launched the first designated colony ship for duna

introducing the "Leonov"  (in this image still attached to the second stage of its booster)



it is powered by eight nerv nuclear engines, and can carry 20 kerbals and up to 4 colony modules to duna and after refueling in ike orbit return to kerbin remotly

the small fuel tanks on the surface are what i call "super RCS" it is more or less a bigger version of the monoprop RCS ports, and features 4 vernor engines wich gives the ship a good manouverability for its size

aditionally it features two Klaws wich make docking with such a large craft easier

Edited December 3, 2016 by Halfdan

[DerpzGames]

So far? Nothing.

 

What I might do? Work on my planet pack, although currently I'm a nooblet at that so the only things I can really make are gas planets XD

[Kerbinchaser]

In my first year of my new career save, Jeb was "Planing" on doing a Mün flyby. However, he got a little excited and landed. 

He had so little D/v left, he had to do two orbital passes to aerobrake before landing safely. 

 

[Sharpy]

Sent a mission to Eeloo. It's gonna be a rather big base. 10 kerbals. I really wonder how the wheels will be performing on the surface.

 

edit: whoops, forgot my pic.

 

Also, there were some hiccups at launch. Like leaving the main engine behind.

 

Edited December 4, 2016 by Sharpy

[Clipperride]

It was time to work on a contract from Maxo Construction Toys to place a lab and habitation facility on the surface of Minmus.  They had already paid an upfront fee of 320,000 roots with another 809,000 (plus change) on completion.  Deciding against the subtle approach, this behemoth was built.

 

Consisting of the launch / atmospheric ascent stage with additional boosters at the bottom

 

A small, Poodle (the engine, not the dog!) powered transfer and de-orbit section

 

With the actual base, landing system and crew return vessel at the very top.  The contract required the services of three pilots (Jeb wasn't happy - the Maxo lawyers cited Jebs' Badas$ attitude towards hardware and crew safety) to ensure the bases safe delivery.

 

Despite being a touch squirrely during the ascent through the atmosphere, a safe parking orbit was achieved and the ship was made ready for the transfer to Minmus burn

 

Heading for the Greater Flats, de-orbit, descent and landing were all flown by Jeb alone, after he locked himself in the Cupola and physically removed the links to the MK1 Capsule with a pair of standard issue toenail clippers.  The base was landed on its legs.....

 

... before dropping down briefly onto the wheels that were specified in the original contract.  The lawyers at Maxo were somewhat annoyed when they realised that they had demanded motorised wheels, but said nothing about its ability to do anything other than spin on the spot!

 

And so, they were forced to pay up in full as soon as the returning crew had been recovered back to KSC - Suckers!!

Have fun

Clipper 

 

[Tyko]

22 hours ago, kraden said:

Any tips for reentry would be welcome. IIRC I often end up in a tumble 

It's pretty straightforward actually and you don't need any mods. A crew capsule will automatically orient itself butt-end first. This is because it's Center of Mass is towards the bottom. You can click on the little button that looks like a weight - right above the symmetry button in the VAB. This will put a yellow ball on your craft showing where the CoM is. As you add parts to you re-entry vehicle, just make sure that you keep the CoM as close to the heat shield as possible.

You want to do this balancing with just the re-entry craft, before you add on your other stages. If you're still having probs, Take a screenshot of your re-entry vehicle with the CoM indicator active and post it to the forums. There are plenty of people that will help you troubleshoot it.

[SmashingKirby148]

Finished up all the boring-start-stuff of my new career and preparing to launch the first line of Gemini styled rockets.

[kraden]

@Tyko thanks, we were actually talking about spaceplanes though. capi3101 gave me some good advice and I had an idea that ought to help me out quite a bit. 

[N_Danger]

 

 After the installing of mods (only 40 or so), I started a Science Game with reduced science gain. I also plan to visit every anomaly in the game I can find.

So I gotta go get that science!

Forgot about the lack of SAS on the first probe core in the tech tree. I didn't make orbit and I think bad things are about to happen.

 

 

[RoboRay]

Completed the first Mun landing in my 6.4x scale Career, in the East Crater (the rim is under the horizon)...

(That's the Service Module exploding, up ahead.)

Edited December 3, 2016 by RoboRay

[The Raging Sandwich]

C7 Microsat 3 (Launched into a 80x950 km orbit): Success

STS-3 (The first shuttle mission to deploy something in orbit. Deployed the Transit 11 but the engine decoupled from the probe after deployment from the shuttle, not being able to get into its HKO. Also, the shuttle nosedived into the ground upon landing.): Failure

Transit 11 (Deployed from STS 3. Wasn't able to reach its planned 50,000x50,000 km orbit.): Partial Success

Cubesat 19 (Somehow gained enough speed to be shot out of the solar system.): Success

STS-4 (A test mission for a nuclear rocket engine. Deployed successfully into LKO. Gained enough speed to make a perfect landing with no need to modify the spacecraft. The shuttle landing procedures used on this mission will be used for the rest.)

Nuclear Propulsion Test 1 (Deployed from STS-4. Completed a TMI burn, Mun orbital insertion, and landed on one tank of liquid fuel.): Success

Cubesat 20 (A retry to launch out of the solar system. Couldn't reach enough speed to shoot out of the solar system but entered a 1,794-year-long solar orbit with an apoapsis of 4 trillion meters.

C7 1 (A test mission of the first commercial spacecraft the C7 S1. It is the first manned commercial spacecraft. Flipped over on launch and couldn't reach space.): Failure

Next planned mission: STS-5 (A mission to renovate KerbinLab 2. Will add 1.25 m docking ports to make way for future expansion.) 

[The Aziz]

I sneezed and game crashed.

Edited December 3, 2016 by The Aziz

[Halfdan]

the first colonists boarded the leonov

 

also the buran above launched aboard an improoved booster stage witch is capable of reentry and reuse

[Clipperride]

32 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I sneezed and game crashed.

But we're these two events linked?

[The Aziz]

7 minutes ago, Clipperride said:

But we're these two events linked?

I wish they were, but currently my folder is flooded with crash logs unrelated to sneezing :<

[DoctorDavinci]

48 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I sneezed and game crashed.

Careful ... every time I look at Kerbol it causes an IRSR (Infinitely Repeating Sneezing Reaction)

I know, just another MLA (Multi-Lettered Acronym) 

[Starman4308]

After the failure of the first mission to put an E-class asteroid into orbit around the Mun (not enough delta-V to match the target asteroid), KSC controllers went a-hunting for other E-class asteroids due to cross into Kerbin SOI. We found one, with an eventual Kerbin periapsis of...

The mission suddenly became one of the highest priority. The largest booster ever constructed was used to propel 60 tonnes of mining equipment and oxygen-boosted NTR to rendezvous with the 900-tonne impactor.

After burning through a scary amount of delta-V, rendezvous and attachment was successful, and drilling began for suspiciously more ice than a carbonaceous asteroid is likely to have.

Kerbin's safety is now largely assured, and the craft is now engaged in rather tediously setting up Mun slingshots to try to bring it into a prograde orbit so I have a ghost of a chance of successfully capturing it into lunar orbit.

Further experiments with the new-fangled "plane" have been more successful than the first, this time attempting to explore an anomaly 15 km up in the mountains.

Proponents of the program insist this is much more successful than the first attempt, and state that regulations will prohibit further attempts to land the aircraft in the mountains, where the air is very, very thin.

There are disadvantages to the default 64k config scaling terrain by 3.2x but atmosphere only by 1.33x. It was all I could do to maintain level flight at over 200 m/sec with all three turboprops at full speed.

The Moho probes are coming up on their 1 km/sec correction burns for proper Moho encounter; rather tedious at 1.25 m/s^2. At least this close to the Sun, I'm getting good returns on solar power.

And pre-emptive apologies if this comes out as a double-post; my browser is being weird.

[Angelo Kerman]

I redesigned the Service Bay, now called the Hangar Deck, to get rid of the rings on the end, and figured out how to get the crew hatches to work.

Here's a picture with the hangar open:

And a quick build to show how it looks with other airship hulls:

The hangar deck serves as the basis for the Heisenber's flight deck system. Simply add a flight deck component atop the hangar, and you've got a runway. Add an elevator component to lift your aircraft up to the flight deck or down to the hangar deck for storage. A special dome-shaped part will make the hangar seamless against the other airship hulls. While I could make the hangar/flight deck one part, I've found that you wouldn't be able to use the hatches built into the floor, and you'd need a special part at either end of the hangar that has crew hatches.

[Triop]

Today was saturday, so we didn't have to risk our lives.

Instead we put together a car from spare parts.

It drives terrible , we luv it !

We are thinking about entering this for the Elcano (Elkano) challenge, should we ?

Oops !

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 4, 2016 by Triop

[Halfdan]

i am really getting fond of reusable boosters