What did you do in KSP1 today?

[JadeOfMaar]

38 minutes ago, Hesp said:

I need your Historian layout.  It is nearly as beautiful as the rest of the screenshot(s).

[Angelo Kerman]

New AE-35 Communications Array:

It combines an RA-100 with the stock M-700 survey scanner and stock orbital scanner. With SCANSat installed, it can be a multi spectral analysis scanner as well.

And, here is the completed Kerbal Discovery II Design Reference Mission Spacecraft:

When the next DSEV version is released, you'll find the completed craft as well as the individual sections in the ReferenceDesigns folder.

Speaking of releases, I'm on track for an end of the week release!

[SaturnianBlue]

I tested a plane that is somewhat based off a Stuka Ju 87. It's bomb carrying version is quite capable of destroying tanks (mine at least, though i'm not sure how good they are), though it needs to drop the full load. I've now equipped it with a 30MM cannon and it is very good at destroying tanks (though the current ammunition load can only allow it to destroy so much). 

The target

Completely destroyed! That said, this tank may quite possibly have many flaws allowing for a relatively easy destruction (though the plane can certainly get shot down). 

In other news, I used Kerbal Animation Suite for the first time in a while for my most recent graphic novel episode (sadly the mod still is a bit hard to use in my opinion).

Edited February 21, 2017 by SaturnianBlue

[AccidentsHappen]

*sigh*, I've done it again. I flew to Minmus in a race on a DMP server, and landed. I won by a day, and cut my engines so that I wouldn't fly off if I  accidentally throttled up (I tend to do that a lot, particularly with plane-shaped landers). I messed around on the surface,  planted a flag, et cetera, et cetera. I then went to prep for take off. Apparently my RCS (which I really didn't need, I had a reaction wheel on-board) could overpower Minmus gravity. I tested this out, and then hit spacebar to re-ignite my engines. Apparently, even after 5 years of playing KSP, this still hasn't sunk in. Hitting spacebar doesn't reignite disabled engines. So, my capsule popped off the glider stage and I was left with what was effectively a glorified space can with a heatshield and a parachute. On a moon with no atmosphere (not that that would help anyway). I got my Kerbal out to see if DMP permitted some cheeky KAS. But before I even touched the ground the glider stage disappeared due to it being classed as debris. So now I need to send another rescue mission to Minmus (Honestly, it's probably the 17th time). Come to think of it, I might just take the same vessel, strap a probe core to it and disable decoupling on the separator.

Edited February 21, 2017 by AccidentsHappen

[Zeiss Ikon]

8 hours ago, Firemetal said:

Who needs high ISP with propellant mass like that? That is why I prefer Kerosene to Hydrogen.

The high density of kerosene lets you make the tank smaller, which improves your mass ratio (smaller tank = lighter tank).  It's still very unclear whether NASA gains anything in terms of payload to LEO by burning LH2/LO2 in their SSME derivative engine, even at their very high pressures.  And SpaceX's new Raptor runs at almost SSME pressure, but on Methane/LOX -- about the same size and weight as a Merlin, but with (IIRC) four times the thrust and higher Isp.  Liquid methane, however, is denser than liquid hydrogen, so they'll be able to get the same total impulse with about half the tank volume.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

And the Moho probe is away!

It's got a plane-change manoeuvre in 77 days and will ultimately arrive at Moho in 146 days. Between this, my probes already in place around Duna and Eve, my probe currently en route to Dres and my Jool probe waiting for its transfer window I'll soon have an unmanned presence around every body except for Eeloo.

[NISSKEPCSIM]

Today I undertook the Apollo Applications Challenge. See more here: 

 

[Firemetal]

2 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

The high density of kerosene lets you make the tank smaller, which improves your mass ratio (smaller tank = lighter tank).  It's still very unclear whether NASA gains anything in terms of payload to LEO by burning LH2/LO2 in their SSME derivative engine, even at their very high pressures.  And SpaceX's new Raptor runs at almost SSME pressure, but on Methane/LOX -- about the same size and weight as a Merlin, but with (IIRC) four times the thrust and higher Isp.  Liquid methane, however, is denser than liquid hydrogen, so they'll be able to get the same total impulse with about half the tank volume.

So you're saying that Methane is slightly better than Kerosene? I wouldn't know. The only methane fueled engines I have used are the spaceY ones.

Fire

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Well, after yesterday's medium-sized SSTO, I just had to go bigger...

[NISSKEPCSIM]

After a bizarre accident, 'Zemlya' station's orbit suddenly got shifted to 69x104. And, while fixing this, I discovered that the RSC thrusters were powerful enough to alter my orbit, raising it to 103x104. I think I'd better remove those thrusters using KAS before Bob spills his coffee on the controls again...

[Numerlor]

Got this probe to Minmus, too bad I forgot payload 

[DerpzGames]

I built my own gas giant, it took a couple billion years but in the end it was worth it.

[eddiew]

Sent an aggressively styled ship to a potential first contact.

Perhaps fortunately, all the crew makes contact with is green goo.

 

[astroheiko]

My mothership is on the way towards Otho and so I have some time to test.

As my trip to Gratian did not go as I thought it, I started to develop a SSTO for Gratian.
At first I wanted something with Aeorespikes, but the plane was too heavy. Now I have something with LVNs and it works quite well.

Here I am at the ascent.

And as you can see I could reach an orbit and still have quite a lot of fuel left.

In principle, it works. But during the entrance phase, I lost control twice and the plane threatened to crash. Maybe I'll put on a drogue chute so this does not happen. In general, the aircraft is not stable enough - I have to change something.
In addition, the angle of attack is too small. Maybe a few more wings. This would also help to start, as the aircraft lifts at 100m / s.

@Norcalplanner

Holy sh .... 11km / s for 3.2 Scale.

Greetings

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by astroheiko

[Zeiss Ikon]

9 hours ago, Firemetal said:

So you're saying that Methane is slightly better than Kerosene? I wouldn't know. The only methane fueled engines I have used are the spaceY ones.

Fire

Honestly, I doubt there's much to choose between methane and kerosene.  Methane gives higher Isp, kerosene lets you use smaller, lighter tanks (methane falls between kerosene and hydrogen in both respects).  The advantage of methane for SpaceX is that sending a tank of hydrogen (no oxidizer, just H2) to Mars will let them make both methane fuel and liquid oxygen to fuel an ascent vehicle and/or return transfer -- that's ISRU in the real world, or approximately the Zubrin method of going to/from Mars.  I honestly have no idea how they'll keep hydrogen liquid for a year and a half while it gets to Mars, never mind in the Martian atmosphere after they land it and wait for the solar panels to come on line to power the conversion unit (much easier to keep the LOX and methane cold, as they're both more than 100 C warmer than LH2).

But yes, at least for hydrocarbons, the lighter the fuel (in terms of molecular weight) the more of the exhaust is (light) water vapor and the less (heavier) carbon monoxide and (heavier still) carbon dioxide -- and the lighter the average molecular weight of the exhaust, at a given chamber pressure, the higher the exhaust velocity (hence Isp).  That's part of why the NERVA engine (designed in the 1960s, but never flown, at least to date) had such high Isp: it was to use liquid hydrogen, only, at very high temperature, so had the lightest possible exhaust molecular weight and lots of energy in that exhaust.

[Hesp]

Bill asked to test a Munar lander with less than 1400m/s in the tanks...

Mission profile was oriented to maximum fuel economy, with the CM ready to rescue the lander potentially stranded in a super-low orbit.

Landing was conducted at dusk in a rather flat area. Mandatory photo during surface operations

Just before docking with the orbital station, with the luxury of 10 m/s of deltaV still available.

There was also the RCS system as emergency backup, but I feel the lander needs at least 100m/s extra to deal with sub-optimal landings and take off...

 

[Shadowmage]

11 minutes ago, Hesp said:

Just before docking with the orbital station, with the luxury of 10 m/s of deltaV still available.

Hehe, 10m/s really is a luxury.  I routinely run my 'by the books' landers out of fuel and have to finish the ascent burn, rv, and dock solely with RCS.  But yeah, that is on a lander with only ~1350dV fully laden, so no real surprises there; can only do equatorial landings, and only to and from very low orbit, and only if piloted exceptionally well (better than MJ landing guidance could do; suicide burns was about the only way it could go).

My eventual solution to allow continued use of that lander was to use an added 'tug' stage to do the de-orbit burns, and to pick up the lander from low-orbit (~12km) and return it to the high(er) orbit station (~50km).  The tug was pretty much just a pair of docking ports, a probe core, fuel tank, static solar panels, and some radial mounted engines (it used the landers RCS for all docking). 

After the tug did the initial de-orbit burn, it would undock from the lander, turn back prograde, and put itself into an eliptical orbit with PE ~20km.  Once the lander was ready to be picked up the tug would circularize at 20km, phasing orbit until transfer was ready, followed by a standard rv/dock/reboost-to-the-station set of maneuvers.

Slightly wasteful on fuel, required lots of extra rv's and docking, but did allow for continued use of the marginally designed lander.  Future revisions of the lander boosted the dV up to ~2k, which allowed for the lander to de-orbit and return to station by itself, as well as one or two very small biome hops.

[Hesp]

3 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

My eventual solution to allow continued use of that lander was to use an added 'tug'

The tug is really a nice solution!

Anyway I think I'll throw down a rover and some supplies to explore the biomes off the equator, relying on the existing lander to bring the guys (and the science!) up to the station.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Built/tested/validated a new crew bus for career. Testing turned up plenty of hiccups (like hanging onto the service module during an abort), but I think it's pretty much perfect, and, thanks to an ASET/ALCOR IVA upgrade, entirely flyable from IVA.

On the subject of IVA flying, I successfully orbited my medium-sized SSTO like that, albeit with an autopilot set up beforehand to do the circularisation, that I could trigger from an MFD.

 

EDIT: add to that "spent an hour figuring out (and fixing) a bug in Bahamutod's Mk22 IVA"

Edited February 22, 2017 by SufficientAnonymity

[JadeOfMaar]

[Visiting my science game finally] Deep Sky's engineers finally rolled out a crewed vessel and launched 2 namesake kerbals to Iota for science and for glory. Jebediah had the honor of test-flying and confirmed everything that needed to be confirmed for escaping Gael's atmosphere and facing it again later. Passing boldly over Iota with a periapsis of only 3km before capturing, Samael Kerman, woman of knowledge, stepped outside and produced the first ever EVA report in space, but not after the pilot Eiyuu raised the periapsis and performed the capture burn.

 

Only modestly over-engineered (or was it?) it became apparent that it was very affordable to sample more than one biome and why not plant a flag at each one, to boot? After the 3rd launch it then became clear that a shedload of dV had gone missing. Crossfeed had been turned on but not off again for the decoupler between the final stage and the transfer stage. Nothing was left for Samael and Eiyuu to do except make a 4th biome landing and wait for a rescue. An LS mod is present so "the clock is ticking" against them.

 

 

[Servo]

Some more messing around with my F-14. I'm about to start recording footage for a Top Gun-styled cinematic.

  

A more accurate/updated pic:

(Changes to wing glove, spine, and cockpit). This version is pretty much finalized, though I may change a few minor things.

[septemberWaves]

I sent 4 probes and 2 cargoes to Duna in the first transfer window for the Constellation-style mission that I'm doing. And then KSP crashed right before I could land the Duna Ascent Vehicle.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

So long, old Kerbin station. You were, well, kind of crap, honestly.

I think those double docking ports were inviting Kraklings. The station would constantly wobble out of control whenever it was in physics range and weird bugs would often appear on anything docked with it (such as docking ports failing to release or fuel lines not working properly.)

So far the new one (still incomplete, but functional) doesn't have those problems.

Here's hoping that it'll stay that way.

[NISSKEPCSIM]

 

19 minutes ago, Whisky Tango Foxtrot said:

I think those double docking ports were inviting Kraklings.

How do you even get double docking ports to work? If you undock one, by the time you undock the other the first one has redocked. How?

[Dafni]

29 minutes ago, NISSKEPCSIM said:

 

How do you even get double docking ports to work? If you undock one, by the time you undock the other the first one has redocked. How?

Undock multiple ports simultaneously by action groups.

Furthermore, if you undock a port, it wont immediately redock AFAIK. You have to move away a few meters and wait a few seconds before they remagnetize, at least it was like that last time I checked. And if they changed that, the action group thing should still work.