What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Castille7]

I've been wanting to build a huge Castle but the best looking parts are very tedious to work with and part count gets very high.

[Guest]

Still trying to build something around the ramped cargo bay that doesn't look like donkey. 

The BAK Kamoa is another failure in the looks department; the best you can say for it is that it has a certain rugged utilitarian charm.

However, it makes up for it in other ways. It is extremely easy to handle -- transitions between hover and level flight are soporifically easy, a conventional horizontal take-off barely needs any control input, and in normal flight it's as close to passively safe as planes get -- push the throttle and it'll gently nose up, cut it and it'll gently nose down into a glide. Thanks to an array of 10 Wheesleys it has ample VERT power (TWR of around 1.26 at sea level with a full fuel load) and those two Goliaths give it a comfortable amount of HORZ thrust as well.

Basically, it'll let you deliver a pretty impressive set of rovers anywhere on Kerbin, or as good as. Perhaps that's enough to make up for the uglies.

It's not quite final yet but I think this one is successfuly enough to go on KerbalX when it is.

Edited November 3, 2018 by Guest

[LaydeeDem]

8 hours ago, putnamto said:

That  texture  pack! What  is  it?

I'm using Stock Visual Enhancements and Stock Visual Terrain on KSP 1.4.5. Not sure if they've been updated for KSP 1.5 yet.

[putnamto]

3 minutes ago, Nutt007 said:

I'm using Stock Visual Enhancements and Stock Visual Terrain on KSP 1.4.5. Not sure if they've been updated for KSP 1.5 yet.

thanks

[GDJ]

[Stewcumber]

I started a new career today. You know what that means - dumb looking vehicles to pharm science within the 30 part limit in the started SPH/VAB:

KSC Tricycle science collector:

 

OK, no brakes is a minor design flaw. Being upside down doesn't stop Jeb from doing 'the science':

 

Revision 2 - unbalanced tricycle but with the luxury of a brake - don't say I never treat Jeb!

 

Island Science:

 

My Mun explorer actually looked OK.

If you're being charitable, you could say it looked like a space-Kronosaurus:

And if you're not, it looks like a manatee:

 

Ah well, I did a bunch of contracts and unlocked half of the 90 point tech points.

 

(Kerbal was also running on my PC for about 10 hours :/)

[Fraston]

Nothing, cause it keeps getting stuck loading the mk2 pods interior..... 

I guess Planetary Annihilation Titans will have to do for now.

Edited November 4, 2018 by Fraston

[SuicidalInsanity]

[FinalFan]

14 hours ago, Castille7 said:

I've been wanting to build a huge Castle but the best looking parts are very tedious to work with and part count gets very high.

Thanks to this post, I'm thinking of Minecraft construction in terms of part count. 

Oh.  My.  Gosh. 

[Xurkitree]

Today I went around installing mods for my next playthrough, and this is the message I get on loading

Module Manager : 745 patches applied

[putnamto]

spent two hours rescuing bill from the mun, he had a working craft, it was just tipped over, out of fuel, and had no engine, he had acess to another engine that was nearby but no tools to move it.

so i sent a probe with a crap ton of fuel, and a crap ton of beer, and an electric screwdriver and got to work, first i crash landed the probe close enough to where he was living on the moon so that i could run parts back and forth quickly and i got to work rebuilding his ship.

started out with the smallest rockomax fuel tank as the base, with four of the small landing legs, then i attached parts in this order from bottom to top
decoupler
terrier
4 of the small regular fuel tanks
service bay with OKTO inside of it
decoupler
basic pod

then i salvaged all the ladders, and all the solar panels/batteries/parachutes/drogue shoots from the crashed supply ship and stapled them all over the pod, and by golly it worked, he ended up with over 2kdv for his return back in his slapped together ship.

i had made a journel for him with one entry for every day he was their, wrote them on flags, turns out the game doesnt like putting a bunch of flags in the same area and they all poofed. or else i would have made screenshots of them to post here, instead all i have is the wrecked probe ship, and the ship he built to get home with.

its times like this that really make me appreciate this game and its mods.

in a nutshell my last two days of playing, landed tourist ship on mun, no dv to get back, sent repair ship with bill to refuel it, crashed.
repaired the tourist ship and flew it back, left bill stranded with his wrecked ship for 27 days as i did other things
27th day crashed bills return ship on the surface near his home(his old crashed ship)
built a new ship out of parts salvaded from both crashed ships and an OKTO that flew bill home.

[Stunkfish]

Yesterday .... (sorry hehe), I managed to build my first SSTO worth that name!
(Yeah, yeah, don't compare it to other stuff posted here. But hey, it's my first )

Ready on the runway:


Accidentally, I got the orbital meeting with my kerbin space station just in time to get a screeny with the sun, mun, kerbin SS and the SSTO in one shot


Now as it is docked and fueld up...I am thinking if I should land it on Kerbin (I have done a "fuel-almost-empty-start-and-landing-test" before the real start). Or.....if I should fuel it up completely and go for outer space???


But TODAY, I decided to actually try and land it, to test the reverse rocket engine I have put on it's nose to see if it will help me bleeding off excess speed without multiple atmospheric breaking maneuvers...
I will post the result soon ... hopefully.... (The thrust of the reverse nose engine is not exactly through the COM. Urghs)

[Guest]

I'm polishing up the Waka and have encountered some problems. One of them maybe some of you can help with?

The soluble problem has to do with air supply. For some reason I'm getting flame-outs after I've loaded the plane, although I don't get any when I fly it without cargo. That's weird as I can't see how the cargo could affect the air intakes, but it does. Anyway, I just have to pile on more intakes, I'm sure that'll sort it out. Eventually.

The second problem is that my cargo rattles around like peas in a pod after I take off with it, and then it starts blowing up. This is the first time I'm actually using a roll-on-roll-off cargo bay. What's the recommended way to fasten your cargo? Is the only solution to use docking ports or AGUs on everything to lock them into place? 'Cuz that's a bit restrictive and kind of defeats the purpose of having a bay you can drive anything that fits into. (I do have KIS/KAS but I want to find a stock solution to it.)

[putnamto]

2 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I'm polishing up the Waka and have encountered some problems. One of them maybe some of you can help with?

The soluble problem has to do with air supply. For some reason I'm getting flame-outs after I've loaded the plane, although I don't get any when I fly it without cargo. That's weird as I can't see how the cargo could affect the air intakes, but it does. Anyway, I just have to pile on more intakes, I'm sure that'll sort it out. Eventually.

The second problem is that my cargo rattles around like peas in a pod after I take off with it, and then it starts blowing up. This is the first time I'm actually using a roll-on-roll-off cargo bay. What's the recommended way to fasten your cargo? Is the only solution to use docking ports or AGUs on everything to lock them into place? 'Cuz that's a bit restrictive and kind of defeats the purpose of having a bay you can drive anything that fits into. (I do have KIS/KAS but I want to find a stock solution to it.)

im thinking docking ports or those tiny decouplers for the probes using kis would be your only bet.

maybe put docking port jr's on the bottom of the vehicles you drive into the bay?

[Guest]

Squarely from the "just because you could, does definitely mean you should" file.

Hover ceiling is about 6700 m.

(She tipped over after touching down though. )

[ARS]

Nothing much to do today, I just finished the prototype of orbital command post

And some flying...

12 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

What part is that? That cockpit looks great

[Hydrothermalventclam]

I loaded up my mothership with the cargo modules for my base.  First, a orbital tug for loading them onto the lander dropship.

Then 4 more rendezvous and dockings to get the cargo up.

So tedious.

 

Also, 

7 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Today I went around installing mods for my next playthrough, and this is the message I get on loading

Module Manager : 745 patches applied

You gotta get that number into the thousands at least.  I am at 6026 patches for my normal save and 23640 for my RSS/RO save (which is kind of an unfair comparison, becasue RO messes with a lot).  Not that it makes any difference of course.

(Just so this is not taken wrong, I mean this in the nicest, joking way possible.  I am not trying to criticize you in any way)

Edited November 4, 2018 by Hydrothermalventclam

[Xurkitree]

39 minutes ago, Hydrothermalventclam said:

I loaded up my mothership with the cargo modules for my base.  First, a orbital tug for loading them onto the lander dropship.

Then 4 more rendezvous and dockings to get the cargo up.

So tedious.

 

Also, 

7 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Today I went around installing mods for my next playthrough, and this is the message I get on loading

Module Manager : 745 patches applied

You gotta get that number into the thousands at least.  I am at 6026 patches for my normal save and 23640 for my RSS/RO save (which is kind of an unfair comparison, becasue RO messes with a lot).  Not that it makes any difference of course.

(Just so this is not taken wrong, I mean this in the nicest, joking way possible.  I am not trying to criticize you in any way)

It'll probably get there - I'm running OPM, so I'm hunting good mods to go with it. I'm not starting it now - I have a grand tour to complete!

YAY NEW COMPUTER!

[Bej Kerman]

9 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Today I went around installing mods for my next playthrough, and this is the message I get on loading

Module Manager : 745 patches applied

Pah! Once I got 53993 patches, and the last time I loaded, that was 2267.

[Guest]

A little less ugly. Also bigger. Heavier. Thirstier. Better. And yes it's VTOL.

Probably not going to finish debugging this one. It's too finicky and feels more like work than fun. I did get as far as doing a test run that ended with a soft vertical landing, but when I started unloading my cargo Bad Things happened, as they sometimes will.

This one is okay to fly. The sheer size and complexity of it makes for a lot more activity though. It doesn't take in enough air to be able to run both HORZ and VERT jets at full power, so I've split them into groups. Take-off procedure is

1. RCS ON, SAS ON
2. full power to both VERT groups (action 2+3);
3. when airborne, power up engines 2 and 4 (action 4);
4. at airspeed of 30 m/s or so, power down VERT group 1 (action 3), power up engines 1 and 3 (action 5)
5. at airspeed of 80 m/s or so, power down VERT group 2 (action 2).

After that you're on your way. 

Landing is a bit simpler as you'll just cut all HORZ engines on the glide down, which means there's enough air for all the VERT ones. Just ride the thrust gently down, controlling attitude with RCS.

But yeah, whew, this isn't light-hearted fun anymore, this is engineering. And somehow I just can't get excited enough about exploring Kerbin that I'm motivated to do all that work.

[Lisias]

I made this 800+ tons (with payload), 4.2MN thrust beauty to fly without cheats.  I only did AutoStruts to GrandParent, and reinforced the weakpoints with Struts (more precisely, with "Iridium Struts" from Impossible Innovations, as the stock ones didn't held). The canards are moveable to realtime adjustments on lifting using Inferno Robotics (and you can't autostrut movable parts, for obvious reasons) - it was particularly challenging (5 Iridium Struts to stabilize the thing!)

Specifications

• Crew:
  • Pilot
  • Flight Engineer
  • CoPilot was replaced by automation and Remote Control
• Passengers:
  • 4 + 1 JumpSeat
  • Essentially, the Cargo Loading/Unloading crew
• Length: 78.9 m 
• Width: 61.8 m 
• Height: 13.5 m (highest)
• Empty weight: 179.846 Kg.
• Max takeoff weight: >800 tons
  • JATO assisted needed for heavier configurations
  • Extreme caution advised to do not blow up your TARMAC!
• Fuel capacity: 45954U - 229770Kg 
• Cargo Hold: 2x CRG-120 + 4x CRG-240 (MK4)
• Powerplant: 4.210 KN (4.660 KN)
  • J404 Panther : 10 x 85KN (130KN) = 850KN (1300 KN)
  • J33 Wheesley: 16 x 120 KN = 1920 KN
  • J56 Lotus: 8 x 180KN = 1440 KN

This lady is so huge that I need to be cautious on takeoff and do not force too much the gears against the ground, of the TARMAC explodes due the stress.

However, I had pushed the parts resistance to their limits, and the main wing joints had collapsed at +/- 500 meters high. Being the cargo a full loaded Mammoth based lifter (yeah, baby! Ruskies, you had been beaten!), in the last minute I fired up the Mammoth and the parachutes and managed to make kind a "suicidal burn" to the ocean, managing to save the crew (the cargo bay melted… hehehe). I didn't had the spirit to make screenshots of the accident (damn!), I was too worried trying to save the crew of my Kerbol Tales series.  

It's a game, with very few (if any) contact to Reality. But it's very gratifying to see such kind of failure happening exactly where it would fail in real life (or not, who in hell would try to built such stupidity? ). That wing joint was always my biggest concerning, there's a reason we don't have W wings on cargo planes.  

(Of course, if there's a reason not to do something, this is precisely the reason I do it!! )

Edited January 29, 2019 by Lisias
changed image format on site.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Pah! Once I got 53993 patches, and the last time I loaded, that was 2267.

I have 31263 on my current RO install.

[KestrelAerospace]

I mucked about with jet-powered WWII fighter lookalikes, using a reverse-thrust'd Wheesley as a 'prop' (yet still I yearn for a true stock propeller part). I think the result is convincing enough, lack of any prop blades nonwithstanding. Flies very neatly, too!

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

6 hours ago, ARS said:

What part is that? That cockpit looks great

It's a personal rework of the Mk2 Lander Can - recently Squad announced a rework of the Mk2 Lander Can for 1.6 that, among other things would have it include an alternate rover body option; The part preview led me to make my own version to use in the interim.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, KestrelAerospace said:

I mucked about with jet-powered WWII fighter lookalikes, using a reverse-thrust'd Wheesley as a 'prop' (yet still I yearn for a true stock propeller part). I think the result is convincing enough, lack of any prop blades nonwithstanding. Flies very neatly, too!

Ho, that's an interesting idea. How much thrust does the Wheesley give in reverse-thrust mode?

Also, yeah some stock props would rule. I would love to do proper aerial exploration of Eve but that's just not feasible pure stock. A prop on the other hand...

-- By the way, I had my first brush with something that could possibly be developed into a K-drive. Was driving a rover into a cargo bay up the ramp, but it was a bit steep and it got stuck. So I figured I'll just raise the ramp a bit to shake it loose. Rather to my surprise, the entire aircraft levitated up, up into the air, before majestically flipping over and disappearing in a giant ball of fire. If that effect could be harnessed controllably, it would make for some highly efficient propulsion... and it might, because the deployment angle of the ramp is smoothly adjustable, and the effect is tied to that. I'm not inclined to put in the work though, but if there are K-drive enthusiasts here who aren't aware of it, there you go.

Edited November 4, 2018 by Guest