What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Guest]

Finished my first procedural rocket and my first with a single booster (test payload is a 100t LFO tank). It's easy to go into a shallow ascent but mostly works just fine thanks to the thrust offset tweakable for procedural SRBs.

[something]

Back in Febuary, I thought it was time to embark on my first ever manned interplanetary mission. Today I got the guys back home in one piece. Since both, the technology available in the career game and my gaming skills increased, I didn't use the modified Mun lander to get the Kerbals back home, as originally intended but sent one of my space planes instead.

So yeah. This was literally the first time ever, I Jeb flew a space plane; came down in one piece on the runway. Guess there's nothing like ending an interplanetary mission in the middle of the runway...

 

[Sharpy]

So, there was a talk about extra space for crew on your missions?

From the initial crew of 4, and the expected 4 arrivals of the Duna surface expedition, the Duna station crew grew to 19.

Currently the only unoccupied spaces are

1. an Advanced Extravehicular Suit

2. a DERP rescue pod

3. a truck cabin

4. an airlock

plus two seats on a dinghy.

Luckily the MK2 hypersonic cockpit recovered from Duna surface can host three kerbals.

Other than that:

- working on my Eve base, but still waiting for @Angel-125 to release updates to Heisenberg, which will be the foundation of the base's flight capability. Currently, added a special version of dinghy for travel over Eve.

Built a mod-based Claymore 2, and currently bringing a class E asteroid into LKO.

Added launchpad and a huge hangar to Gilly base

(poor trucky)

Found a bug in my own mod. The RCS thrusters have some leftover completely unnecessary and invisible, immaterial surface dozens of meters wide attached, which made it impossible to park the rover inside the hangar. Found through dismantling the rover until it would fit.

Sent another school trip to Minmus. Using the cheaty OPT 'dark drive'. SSTO with some 25,000m/s in LKO? heh, that was a funny trip. Instead of gently gliding and aerobraking towards KSC I just burned retrograde and fell right down onto it.

Oh, and Minmus Station keeps growing organically. It sprouted a garage and a DERP pod.

Funny story with that school trip. The curriculum included leaving a batch of screwdrivers on the Minmus station (they just misplaced their last one... it seems screwdrivers vanish if you board certain kinds of pods) and deploying Surface Science modules on the surface. Except the dinguses forgot to take any solar panels! So one of the engineers flew to planetary rescue pods deployed on the surface, flew it to the landing site, dismantled it for a tiny RTG battery, found the battery is insufficient to power the station, then attached the huge RTG from the plane to the station, and the rest of the flight (escape Kerbin SOI, return to Minmus Station, make a Mun flyby and land on Kerbin) was running off the RTG the size of a handwatch battery. Luckily weeks with virtually no power draw and huge rechargeable batteries for when power was needed meant it sufficed.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Sharpy

[Mikki]

  Kerbal Dakar 2017 testing...



And later watching Jebediah contemplating about wheels, the destroyer of things, snacks, and other confusing elements in his life...

[Triop]

Today we finished designing a "super stealth" rover.

isn't she a beauty ?

[The Raging Sandwich]

Just marvelous.

[Triop]

Just now, The Raging Sandwich said:

Just marvelous.

Want a link to download ?

[The Raging Sandwich]

Please!

[Triop]

1 hour ago, The Raging Sandwich said:

Please!

Did you really think I would share my technology with you ? 

[SuperHappySquid]

Today I experimented with stock propellers and tried to recreate the most beautiful fighter of all time; the Supermarine Spitfire! My feeble attempts do not do the real thing justice. :¬)

 

 

[Brownhair2]

I drove all the way to one end of the canyon.

I somehow got surprised by Jool. Who knew a gas giant could be so sneaky?

Also saw Duna

Then I drove across the ridge and jumped back down.

Unfortunately, the lander didn't have enough fuel to return to the Meteor, so the Meteor has to come to it!

Decided to use a Duna gravity assist

Hi Duna! Sorry we didn't get to land on you. Maybe another time...

But wait! The Ike lander has arrived!

I like Ike! You like Ike! Everybody likes Ike! (bum bum bum)

...

Yes

The entire mission

was just for that

Nolas, Leouch and Dres were just afterthoughts.

This was the sole purpose of the mission.

 

it was worth it

 

 

AHEM MOVING ON

(actually Ike is kinda boring) On second thought, I kinda like it. Sure, there might not be any giant mountains or deep canyons, but sometimes it's nice to just have a barren expanse as far as the eye can see... (not to mention it's much easier to drive rovers)

Edited December 21, 2016 by Brownhair2

[loch.ness]

Have time to play again.  I have an N1 crew headed to Minmus to level up a pair likely to join the Val on TMR Halo for the trip to Duna in T-102 days.  I had an Apollo team suffer an unexplained emergency enroute to Mun when the lander exploded (didn't change anything but this time something clipped through the faring and sent it off into space.  The team had to abort back to Kerbin but the CSM was unharmed so it was a routine abort.  Got them back into Mun orbit now.

Once I've got my crew selections in mind I'm going to work on getting the infrastructure in orbit and ready for Duna transfer.

 

I also installed Hooligan labs airships for future plans.  One big mission at  a time though.  In past versions I've thrice sent big missions to Duna that could land and return (once with full life support) but then a big update comes before I have a chance to get them back and I abandon the S.A.V.E. for a new one.  This time I'm going to succeed here and then maybe look into making a proper colony while I explore the rest of the system (or start getting a R.O. save and start playing in RSS like I've wanted to but been intimidated from doing for a while.

[panarchist]

Started a new game with Kerbalism, a host of other minor mods (very few parts mods), and Historical Progression Tech Tree.  Science game (ahem, "Classic Career")  :-D

Did a couple of airplane flights on VERY unstable aircraft, and then a couple of unmanned satellites with varying degrees of success.  Then I got the "Learjet"-style aircraft cabin, and I decided that Jeb was, well, kind of insane.  (I mean, isn't he?)  So I built the Valkyrie Rocket for the first manned orbit. (using the "Learjet" as the crew cabin) Only problem is, no 'chutes, no heat shield.

Well, apparently NO PROBLEM, either.  On the re-entry, I lowered periapsis to 68k, then at periapsis I lowered apoapsis below 70k and let the orbit decay in the atmosphere for a while.  When I was in a 59k x 64k orbit (at 2,316m/s velocity), I turned the engine back on (I had about 750m/s left in the tank) and burned a bit to lower my perapsis to -300km or so.  I went in engine-first, and let the temperature get up to 1400K or so, then burned half the fuel to reduce my speed down below 1,600m/s.  That also lowered my temp, letting me get below 1,200m/s before overheating and exploding.  Then I saved the rest of the fuel for when I got to ~5-6s before impact.  I then turned the engine on full and burned the last 300m/s of fuel.  I hit the ground somewhere between 40 and 60 m/s, losing the engine, but saving the crew cabin.

Unfortunately, because I play on dual monitor, my screenshots ate themselves.  >:-(  

So you'll just have to imagine the awesomeness, but it did happen.

----------------------------------------------------

And then I went and checked out @Angel-125's awesome floating carrier on this very thread:

On 12/19/2016 at 11:14 PM, Angel-125 said:

I built a new search radar (equal to stock orbital scanner)

 

DUDE - Whoa! And bonus points for naming it the Akron.  Awesome! (I am a former Navy guy, who worked with the Aviation Boatswain's Mates - the guys who, among other things, used to tie down airships like the Macon, the Akron, and the Los Angeles.

Edited December 21, 2016 by panarchist

[Tw1]

Recovery effort continued.

 

Successful technology demonstration!
We have shown ourselves capable of recovering vehicles from pools. A great milestone for any space program. 

I plowed the fields.

And uh, re-purposed the crane as a toll both.

It is definitely not stuck. This was definitely what I intended to do. 

And some.. experiments

In novel ways to travel through space. 

Edited December 22, 2016 by Tw1

[kball]

Watch out denizens of Duna! A veritable armada approaches!

 

Just last week I touched down on Duna for the very first time with a science probe. I was looking forward to many missions exploring Duna and Ike in good course. But then I checked the porkchop plot and to my horror the transfer window was closing... and fast! The next time I could get to Duna for less than 8km/s would be a whole year and a half's wait! I couldn't bear the thought of lonely science probes, surveyors and comms satellites serving no purpose for so long after having fought so diligently to get them all there. It was time to build a fleet.

The goal: Get everything necessary for self sustaining, crewed Duna-Ike operations en route in under 10 days.

The result:

5.5M √

18 missions carrying 30 ships/modules and 9 crew:

1 x Base Mining Module (Drills, converter, ore tanks)
1 x Base Fuel Tank
1 x Base Command Module
1 x Base Command Chassis
1 x Base Solar Array
1 x Power Base Module (Batteries)
8 x Base module landers
2 x Heavy base module landers
2 x Utility tugs for assembling modules and landers in orbit
2 x Minimalist Space Stations with fuel tanks, one each for Ike and Duna
3 x Fuel tankers for lifting fuel from Ike and hauling it to Duna
4 x Utility/Science shuttles for moving crew between Duna and Ike orbit and to their surfaces and back, and doing the good science when there
4 x Rovers because how sad to get to the surface and not be able to drive around!

3 Pilots
3 Scientists
3 Engineers

And none of this equipment has been tested!! These are my first 2.5m base modules, and my first operation to attempt to lift any substantial amount of fuel off any planet or moon.

The launch vehicles had to be huge because I was already at the end of the transfer window with 7.5km/s needed to get me there. (I'm guessing some might not even consider this within the transfer window!)

Spoiler

 

 

 

This one was a beast to lift. But it all fit together so neatly, I couldn't stomach a redesign.

Spoiler

 

Like sardines in a can.

Spoiler

Welp, it bankrupted the space program. Even had to sell some science to get the last ship off. Silly me for running that publicity campaign thinking, what could I ever do with more than 5M √s!

It's going to be craziness managing all their arrivals, and I'm sure I put one or two of them on course for retrograde orbits. Oh well, nothing a small mid course correction can't address. Now we hold our breath and hope enough forethought went into all the engineering that it all works on the other end. So many unknowns!

Will the rovers with their parachutes have enough delta-V to get down to Duna safely? Will the shuttles have enough delta-V to land on Duna and get back to orbit?? Will everything fit together on Ike???

One problem has already come to light - the base module landers have no reaction wheels! It's going to be interesting keeping them oriented correctly on the way down. Oof.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2016 by kball

[Sharpy]

1 hour ago, Tw1 said:

Recovery effort continued.

 

Heh, similar to mine. Although depending on where you want to use it, these wheels may be an overkill. And their energy requirements. A couple static panels and two big batteries was all that was needed on Minmus; the number of ruggedized wheels was an overkill too. What's there on the cradle?

 

[Tw1]

1 hour ago, kball said:

 

Like sardines in a can.

 

No Redundancy like over redundancy. 

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

Heh, similar to mine. Although depending on where you want to use it, these wheels may be an overkill. And their energy requirements. A couple static panels and two big batteries was all that was needed on Minmus; the number of ruggedized wheels was an overkill too. What's there on the cradle?

 

It's a good basic design. I've done one on Minmus in the past, and your wheel set up might be more effective there, I recall the big wheels just slipping all over the place. 
Back then, I used a giant RTG mod for extra power, which necessitated  protective screens. 

 

The Cradle? That bit up the top? There, I've got a sort of operations platform which kerbals can walk about on to change hooks, and a KIS container full of spares, and different types. Magnet is pretty much always the best type though.

Also got a seat for driving it up there.  If I use it again at some point, I'm thinking of adding ladders which extend under the hooks, so I can use the winch to get kerbals back up there after they fall. 

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2016 by Tw1

[kball]

3 hours ago, Tw1 said:

Recovery effort continued.

 

 

Musta been a rager at the Astronaut Complex last night.

[Big Kerbie]

Work continues on the planned Port Kerbin space station. With the accepted contracts in the pipeline, there was some talk of trying to meld several missions into a big single mission.

Build a station in Kerbin orbit with antenna, docking port, power generation, a science lab, and room for 9; build a station in Minmus orbit with antenna, docking port, power generation, a science lab, and room for 5; rendezvous in Mun orbit; dock two ships together in Mun orbit.

Our fearless engineers say there is no reason we could not build a station capable to traveling from Kerbin to the Mun and then on to Minmus.

So the mission designers have this plan: build the station with the capability of expansion in Kerbin orbit with nuclear engines. Once the station has completed that contract, travel to Mun. Once there, it will wait for Val and the Mun 2 landing mission. They will rendezvous and dock in Mun orbit. Val and her intrepid crew will make a landing and set up another SEP and Rover and collect much science. The Mun 2 mission will once more rendezvous with the Station and drop off all the science and possibly refuel. Then, the Port Kerbin space station with Mun 2 mission still docked, will travel to Minmus. Val and her crew will load up another SEP from the stations stores and prepare to make the first Minmus landing. Port Kerbin space station will make orbit around Minmus and fulfill that contract. Before landing, we will make sure there aren't any other contracts that popped up enroute. Val and her crew will make the landing on Minmus and make much science. They will then once more rendezvous with the space station and leave their science data for the scientists to study in Minmus orbit. They will then return to Kerbin aboard the Mun 2 lander capsule.

It's probably the most ambitious mission I've ever planned for KSP. Usually it's just out and back. I have high hopes but it might be more than I can chew. This mission will end up taking 9 Kerbalnauts and quite a bit of time, both real time and in-game. The biggest part will be making the station big enough and controlable enough to make the mission work. I know the Mun 2 mission spacecraft is capable enough to do its part of it, so that's less of a worry. We'll see how it goes. 

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go) Yesterday was mostly an administrative day; I took a look at the current condition of all of my Kerbals and figured out where they were, and mainly was making an attempt to determine who I wanted to send to Duna. Since my intent is to establish permanent bases on both Duna and Ike, I wanted Kerbals that had some degree of experience already, but could be spared for a long-term assignment. I picked a select group of four white-suits that I felt needed "additional training" (i.e. they needed to go out and plant a flag on Mün). I also had a new batch of tourists that needed to go up to the Kerbinport space station, and between the two the total number of Kerbals was nine - one too many for the reliable Auk II passenger spaceplane. Rather than send up two Auk IIs, I decided the time had finally come to design the Auk VII...

Auk VII:  A sixteen-passenger, eight engine SSTO with docking capabilities. Designed to ferry larger groups of passengers from KSC to the Kerbinport space station and/or orbital vehicles than the Auk II.

I spent a fair amount of my time in the litterbox testing the craft, launching a Target 1 probe for it to rendezvous and dock with. Testing generally went well; the plane's a tad maneuverable for a passenger craft - had to shift fuel forward during re-entry - but overall it flies well. Problems during the shakedown included the need to double-check the panels (they didn't want to close on re-entry and I wound up having to do that manually) and re-setting the deflection of the spoilers to full (something I tend to do during my design process, which is annoying). I did have to do a wave-off of the first landing attempt and pulled some serious gees getting it around for another pass; probably won't want to do that when there are actual passengers aboard. Also bounced the plane on landing, which is not supposed to happen with a down-sloping nose gear setup. Still, the craft landed intact and I was comfortable certifying it for general service. Since I had seats for sixteen, I went ahead and filled up the plane with my nine selected Kerbals and seven others and launched it to LKO. Still haven't performed the rendezvous as of this morning.

One of the other things I decided I needed was a science lander capable of making planetfall on Duna and being able return to orbit. I decided to base this craft on the earlier Fireball 7 design, since that craft was largely successful in its efforts to loot and pillage the Münar biomes. The main change I wanted to make was to make it dockable, something that would stay in space. I have two 550 nodes left to unlock on my tech tree, and I came to the determination that a science lab could provide me with that amount if I gave it sufficient initial data. All of this gave me an excuse to build and test the Fireball 7a field science lander; one was launched to Mün with Ziggy Kerman at the helm. His job will be to carpet bomb a single Münar biome for science, rendezvous with the Munport space station and then begin processing the data aboard the onboard lab. I hope to have Bob and Juluna there by the time he's done in order to help speed up the science processing; both of them are two-star scientists, the best I've got at the moment. Ultimate goal of the mission is to finish unlocking the tech tree and proof of concept.

Only other thing that happened yesterday was the arrival of Stange Cargo at Mün's SOI. It will be two hours before the craft enters orbit and it's just now dawn at the Piper Alpha surface refinery, so I may try to sneak the Old Bessie fuel tender down there to pick up some much needed mission fuel for Jeb and his passengers.

Hoping to find more time to play today; I didn't really do all that much yesterday (design work and all). One thing I did mention the other day was that I had taken some glamour shots of my SPH fleet - as promised, here's the link to the imgur album.

Edited December 21, 2016 by capi3101

[loch.ness]

Three kerbals applying for positions on the Duna team pulled off a landing near a Munar Arch.  The landing was 365 meters away from the base of the arch.  Originally they were coming down into a crater wall and had to redirect a bit but still managed to stay on target.

The Munar excursion crew has completed surface activities and docked the ascent stage to the CSM with their samples.  Orbit and maneuvering ate all of the ascent module's LF/O and nearly all of its monoprop but the CSM is almost completely full.  The crew considered shooting for a Minmus flyby knowing that their supplies would last but that they'd be stir-crazy from the cramped quarters by the time they made it back to Kerbin.  Mission control is advising against it but they still have not begun their return burn.

 

Two other teams are en-route to Minmus currently with the closer one arriving in 7 days and the further one arriving in 9 days.  T-100 days to Duna transfer and I still have a lot of infrastructure launches to do and a refuel of the TMR Halo's LF reserves.

[Angelo Kerman]

8 hours ago, panarchist said:

Started a new game with Kerbalism, a host of other minor mods (very few parts mods), and Historical Progression Tech Tree.  Science game (ahem, "Classic Career")  :-D

Did a couple of airplane flights on VERY unstable aircraft, and then a couple of unmanned satellites with varying degrees of success.  Then I got the "Learjet"-style aircraft cabin, and I decided that Jeb was, well, kind of insane.  (I mean, isn't he?)  So I built the Valkyrie Rocket for the first manned orbit. (using the "Learjet" as the crew cabin) Only problem is, no 'chutes, no heat shield.

Well, apparently NO PROBLEM, either.  On the re-entry, I lowered periapsis to 68k, then at periapsis I lowered apoapsis below 70k and let the orbit decay in the atmosphere for a while.  When I was in a 59k x 64k orbit (at 2,316m/s velocity), I turned the engine back on (I had about 750m/s left in the tank) and burned a bit to lower my perapsis to -300km or so.  I went in engine-first, and let the temperature get up to 1400K or so, then burned half the fuel to reduce my speed down below 1,600m/s.  That also lowered my temp, letting me get below 1,200m/s before overheating and exploding.  Then I saved the rest of the fuel for when I got to ~5-6s before impact.  I then turned the engine on full and burned the last 300m/s of fuel.  I hit the ground somewhere between 40 and 60 m/s, losing the engine, but saving the crew cabin.

Unfortunately, because I play on dual monitor, my screenshots ate themselves.  >:-(  

So you'll just have to imagine the awesomeness, but it did happen.

----------------------------------------------------

And then I went and checked out @Angel-125's awesome floating carrier on this very thread:

DUDE - Whoa! And bonus points for naming it the Akron.  Awesome! (I am a former Navy guy, who worked with the Aviation Boatswain's Mates - the guys who, among other things, used to tie down airships like the Macon, the Akron, and the Los Angeles.

Way cool, thank you for your service.  The Akron and Macon were really fascinating to me when I was a kid, the concept of a flying aircraft carrier was just too enticing. My kerbal version is more a flat top with working aircraft elevator to the hangar deck, but you can flip the hangar deck upside down and recover airplanes using docking ports and Infernal Robotics arms. It would be interesting to have botswain's mates in KSP, maybe they take winch lines from KAS and connect them to ground pylons bolted to the ground.

[panarchist]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

Way cool, thank you for your service.  The Akron and Macon were really fascinating to me when I was a kid, the concept of a flying aircraft carrier was just too enticing. My kerbal version is more a flat top with working aircraft elevator to the hangar deck, but you can flip the hangar deck upside down and recover airplanes using docking ports and Infernal Robotics arms. It would be interesting to have botswain's mates in KSP, maybe they take winch lines from KAS and connect them to ground pylons bolted to the ground.

ABHs (Aviation Boatswain's Mates) train at Lakehurst, NJ - the site of the Hindenburg disaster.  On carriers, they chock and chain aircraft, so I can totally see the Kerbal equivalent doing exactly that.  I'm still fascinated by the Akron and the Macon - and love seeing the various airship mods that come and go.  Now we just need a KSP S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and a submersible aircraft carrier to play around with.  ;-)

[Angelo Kerman]

8 minutes ago, panarchist said:

ABHs (Aviation Boatswain's Mates) train at Lakehurst, NJ - the site of the Hindenburg disaster.  On carriers, they chock and chain aircraft, so I can totally see the Kerbal equivalent doing exactly that.  I'm still fascinated by the Akron and the Macon - and love seeing the various airship mods that come and go.  Now we just need a KSP S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and a submersible aircraft carrier to play around with.  ;-)

Hm, well, @Fengist has 10m submarine parts, all I'd need to do is make a 10m hangar deck in the form factor of his submarine parts, and you'd be able to use the Heisenberg's flight deck system with it...

 

Edited December 21, 2016 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, panarchist said:

ABHs (Aviation Boatswain's Mates) train at Lakehurst, NJ - the site of the Hindenburg disaster.  On carriers, they chock and chain aircraft, so I can totally see the Kerbal equivalent doing exactly that.  I'm still fascinated by the Akron and the Macon - and love seeing the various airship mods that come and go.  Now we just need a KSP S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and a submersible aircraft carrier to play around with.  ;-)