What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Hotel26]

16 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

 

I've been secretly admiring this bird for some time!  Please allow me to check: its name is Pumera?

[capi3101]

Was pretty busy in RL over the weekend (as is usual), and didn't wind up with time to play the game. No screenies today, I'm afraid.

On Friday, having sorted out some of the issues I was having with the latest version of Procedural Fairings, I launched a Gurney 7b double-rescue ship to Kerbin and picked up Ludson Kerman from orbit, then made a minimal burn to go pick up Naford Kerman; the second rendezvous hasn't happened just yet but I expect that will take place later today. The Kerbin Alpha and Mun Alpha sats (both Boop Boop 7s) had their orbits adjusted for contracts, and the scientist Legman Kerman was launched for Minmus aboard a Gurney 7 in an attempt to perform at least a flyby mission prior to Bob's scheduled arrival. The burn was a success - Legmun will arrive in three days, a full week ahead of Bob - but I'm concerned that the craft will have insufficient delta-V for a return flight; on its present trajectory, it'll escape Kerbin's SOI in ten days. I hate losing good kerbals, even whitesuits. Ended the day with the launch of a polar scanner probe to Mun. It has a goo container too, because contracts. I want to start putting up the infrastructure for further Mun missions. 

This morning I launched an un-named probe craft to perform a pair of high-atmospheric hauling and parts test missions. Both of those missions were completed successfully, but I made the mistake of jettisoning the craft's heat shield resulting in loss of vehicle. Since the missions were done and I got the booster back (thanks, Stage Recovery), I just went with it. Less profit, I know, but I just didn't feel like doing those parts tests over again...

[djr5899]

Was away with the family for the weekend, but when I got back yesterday afternoon, I fired up KSP and got a few things done:

• Did partial rescue contract in very low Minmus orbit.  Didn't realize I needed to recover the vessel as well, so I will be making a return trip.
• After the rescue, sent a manned/drone to dock up with the rescue craft to finish up another contract.
• Took 2-3 reverts to get the craft home, as I was about one parachute short of minimal landing speed, so my Hitchhiker module kept exploding on touchdown.  Was finally able to keep the last engine stage on during re-entry and have enough dV left in my Poodle engine to suicide burn off the last 2-3 m/s needed.
• Updated my mods
• Finally broke down and added another mod, Kerbal Alarm Clock.  Never felt the need for it before, since up until the last two months or so I rarely attempted to leave Kerbin SOI.  Now, I have ships on the way to Duna and my first every craft on the way to Moho.  Seemed like an absolute must to get Alarm Clock at this point, especially after recalling my last trip to Duna with 5 separate craft in the same launch window...where one or two got pulled out of Duna SOI while I was controlling others.

Have about 40 days left until my first ever Moho mission reaches a point where I can create an intercept, and about 150 days until my Duna encounter.  Looking for other launch windows and trying to build a standard science probe for first planet/moon visits (so I can just build bigger/smaller launch systems as needed for the main core).

 

Edited September 17, 2018 by djr5899
wrong planet typed

[Ho Lam Kerman]

Well, seems like I posted too early. The day isn't over, but I just launched a probe, and dropped an atmosphere probe into Uranus Urlum.

That probe I was talking about was a replica of Cassini-Huygens. Yup, another legacy probe, the others being Sputnik, Parker Solar Probe and Giotto.

(I actually had another sputnik replica constantly orbiting Kerbin, but it was gone after a glitch.)

I built a Titan IVB replica just for it, but I can foresee myself using it for other heavy probes as well. 

(I skipped the flybys as I still can't get them right. And I don't want to wait for a Eve-Eve-Kerbin-Jool-Sarnus window, if that's even possible in KSP.)

Fortunately, I was only 19 days from the Sarnus launch window, so I didn't have to wait long.

I planned a few manoeuvres, and now I'm on course to a Tekto impact trajectory (I forgot to put propulsive sources on the Huygens, and so I'd have to manoeuvre Cassini out of the way once I'm on the right orbit.)

And now, we wait. A year and a half to the plane correction, and 7 years to the orbit insertion.

 

Meanwhile, I dropped my atmosphere probe into Urlum. I had a look-see around the Solar System after Bill's stroll around the KSC, and so I discovered that the Urlum probe that I put into orbit quite a few years ago hadn't dropped its atmosphere probe. So I did.

(I'm just doing the atmosphere drop probe for fun- I'm not in career. Heck, I'm not even in science. I play sandbox.)

Only after I had separated and started the deorbit burn, then I discovered that I was going the wrong way- into the shadow instead of the bright side. But then, I'd actually packed enough propellant for a complete reversal of direction- so I started crossing the terminator again.

Well, now travelling retrograde, I entered Urlum's atmosphere. I didn't use a single drop of ablator. Urlum's atmosphere is quite thin. I then began my descent, not using a parachute.

I quickly made my observations with the atmosphere spectrometer, and transmitted them with the slowest antenna I've ever flown. Didn't want them to break off. I had no idea how dense Urlum's atmosphere was, mind you.

The descent was actually quicker than I expected. I thought it'd take an hour. But it took only 40 minutes in-game, at 4x warp, so it cost me about 10 minutes of game time.

So that concludes today. For real this time.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Ho Lam Kerman

[Kerbolitto]

Today in KSP :

 

I managed an extremly cheap Jool capture maneuver at the grand total of 1.3m/s

 

I did something like this months ago when showing the game to friends with a non efficient rocket built in 5 minutes tops, but somehow I never managed to get that kind of capture again. Despite having hundreds of hours on the game I have very limited experiene with this system (landed on 1 moon only :x) so I was very pleased to do this again !

The capture use Laythe flyby instead of Tylo.

The ship is approaching Jool from a high altitude at 90 billions kilometers, which is about Duna's radius higher then optimum transfer. The reason being that's its an exploring ship that I launched long ago and skipped its maneuver to focus on the STS challenge, which takes place on this savegame.

 

Edited September 17, 2018 by Kerbolitto

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

My first interplanetary probe arrived at Duna, circularizing into a polar orbit and providing repeatable science experiments, surface scanning and communications to support future missions.

My Moho probe (similarly equipped, but with more powerful communications) also arrived.

I've also sent a probe to Eve, which both departed and arrived since my last posting here.

After a few more technology unlocks, I was able to get my passenger SSTOs from my last campaign out of mothballs.

I used it to send up some engineers to deploy the centrifuge on Kerbin Station.

Speaking of Kerbin Station, I've added a science lab/observation module, completing its essential features (although it won't be complete until I add the second tank/power/communication module and the planned asteroid mining equipment.)

With most of the tech tree unlocked, it's time to replace my old Minmus station, starting with a central hub and tank/power/comms array.

After that came the command and centrifuge module, which was also the first use of my heavy tug design, slightly tweaked from the design I used in my previous save to add Snacks storage and enclosed crew space.

This type of centrifuge takes three engineers to deploy, and since I generally only have two at Minmus at any given time (one in the station and one on the surface) I instead sent an SSTO full of engineers up to do the deployment while the module is still in low Kerbin orbit.

Construction continued with a science/observatory/soil recycling module.

And with a second tank module, the station was complete and ready to support Minmus operations.

Finally, I sent probes on their way to Jool

and Eeloo

leaving Dres as the only planet without a mission either in orbit or en route, and that's just because the next Dres launch window is still a ways off.

[Cavscout74]

6 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

I've been secretly admiring this bird for some time!  Please allow me to check: its name is Pumera?

Glad you like it.  Original credit goes to @XLjedi though, as I copied reverse engineered the basic layout of his Star Ranger for the Pumera.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Cavscout74

[XLjedi]

15 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

Glad you like it.  Original credit goes to @XLjedi though, as I copied the basic layout of his Star Ranger for the Pumera.

@Hotel26 @Cavscout74

The SP-06 Star Ranger continues to be my most popular design.  I have a basic SP-06 and larger SP-06B variant available on KerbalX.  If you'd like to try one and/or modify one to your own mission requirements, just follow the "My Designs" link in my signature below.  Nice to see the Pumera is still out there touring the Kerbol system.

[purpleivan]

Just finished the Island Race in the Kerbin Drivers Association racing series (following up from Triop's Dessert Derby 2018 challenge).

It takes place in this lovely little location, with Velocirover's journey starting by the lake.

Sent out a scout the recce the course.

The race (split over two stages) took 16:15 to complete.

Edited September 17, 2018 by purpleivan

[Kebab Kerman]

I built a rocket to get a station to LKO in one launch. Ended up not even using up the first stage.

Could probably get it to Duna if I wanted to...

[Triop]

Working on a ferry I designed a long time ago.

Got rid of all the mods it had and it's now stock.

First test, getting this thing in the water and dock with the shore.

I'm using reverse on the engines to rotate it faster.

Docking succes.

It needs some more work, like a docking port to hold a car . . .

Spoiler

 

 

Edited September 18, 2018 by Triop

[Kebab Kerman]

I can't undock the tug from the station to put the solar panels in place. Why. Why me?

Oh well, have this nice picture of it. The last stage is still attached because I'm paranoid about actually detaching the tug and knocking it out of orbit. It also has monopropellent, so that helps too.

EDIT: The tug is now permanently stuck to the station

Edited September 17, 2018 by Kebab Kerman

[Kebab Kerman]

FINALLY!

\

[Cyrious]

Needs more solar panels. Speaking of which, I kinda want to figure out a configuration that would allow for the use of that monstrously huge 500EC/s blanket array.

[Kebab Kerman]

5 minutes ago, Cyrious said:

Needs more solar panels. Speaking of which, I kinda want to figure out a configuration that would allow for the use of that monstrously huge 500EC/s blanket array.

More panels you say...?

 

You're all doomed.

[Geonovast]

OH GOD HOW DID I DO THIS.  I wish I could repeat this, but I have no idea how I did it.

32 x symmetry with a single placement.

 

[Cyrious]

30 minutes ago, Kebab Kerman said:

More panels you say...?

 

You're all doomed.

Never enough solar panels. Its why all of my stations have more solar power than what they'll ever need. Batteries are the same: can never have enough.

[Kebab Kerman]

10 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

OH GOD HOW DID I DO THIS.  I wish I could repeat this, but I have no idea how I did it.

32 x symmetry with a single placement.

 

Has science gone too far?

No! Of course it hasn't! INCREASE IT MORE!

[Geonovast]

*whimper*

I have no idea what that symmetry is.  It might be 192.

WHAT DID I DO

Edited September 18, 2018 by Geonovast

[Kebab Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

*whimper*

I have no idea what that symmetry is.  It might be 192.

WHAT DID I DO

NOW YOU'RE ALMOST SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE!

[Cyrious]

Do it with boosters and please our lord and savior Jeb. (I assume 0 responsibility for crashes etc from this lol).

Edit: On topic, completed a station science mission, got a chunky 3.7 mil out of it

I really need to get my mobile Station Science mothership built and flying about, but at the same time I've already shelled out something like 15 million to get my existing science stations up so its kinda worthless.

Crazy idea I just had though: since upper atmospheres count as their own biome/science region, it would be possible, albeit suicidal to build a Station Science ship, load it up with as many scientists as possible, throw on a ton of ion engines and reactors and a ton of fuel, then drop it into the upper reaches of the atmosphere and actively "fly" it while the kerbals onboard frantically get the work done before it runs out of fuel and burns up. Go too high, I leave the "flying high" region and the science pods reset. Go too low, engines cant keep up with the drag, and I re-enter and burn up.

 

If i had enough scientist kerbals around I'd do it.

 

Edit2: Ok, definitely need to experiment with those Karbonite boosters, cause 1.3 TWR on the Mun is just horrid.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Cyrious

[Trann]

I realized I passed 100,000K Kerbucks for the first time and I'm ignoring 500K missions because they're not profitable enough. 

My Grand Tour II ship is doing a pretty good job so far, harvesting *all* the science from Duna/Ike and Eeloo.  I took her out deep to ensure battery levels on each lander was sufficient and now I'm working her back in.  Feeling pretty confident that nothing is out of reach for her (except Eve!)

Edited September 18, 2018 by Trann

[Cyrious]

Well that was an odd bug. Launched the fully loaded ore miner from the mun's surface (srsly 2.08m/s^2 acceleration is horrific), but for some reason it failed to transition from the landed state to the In-Space Low state.

[Geonovast]

2 minutes ago, Cyrious said:

Well that was an odd bug. Launched the fully loaded ore miner from the mun's surface (srsly 2.08m/s^2 acceleration is horrific), but for some reason it failed to transition from the landed state to the In-Space Low state.

I've been there.  I got errors when trying to quicksave or switch vessels because I was "moving over terrain"

[Cyrious]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

I've been there.  I got errors when trying to quicksave or switch vessels because I was "moving over terrain"

Yah, was wondering why my miner was shaking wildly. It was only AFTER i made it all the way to orbit and tried to switch to another craft that I realized "Oh, it thinks im still on the ground. Well, back to main menu then back in." Fixed it, and now I'm launching *for real* this time.

Hmmm, other things the V2 miner is going to need... Moar Boosters are an option but I dont want to spend extra mass on Karbonite drills.

Edit: well, i have successfully delivered my first cargo of ore to the station. Need to go harvest more and look into making a much bigger ore miner/hauler. I'd like to have the onboard ore reserves full in less than 13-15 flights and over a year in-game.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Cyrious