What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Xurkitree]

tfw you try to get to Jool using K-E-K-K-J but end up getting there with K-E-K-J

[oAsAo]

https://imgur.com/a/a0jlG9K

Sended Jebediah to PotatoRoid… with pretty tight Dv budget

Probably should explore them further...

Edited November 11, 2018 by oAsAo

[Hotel26]

Saw a screenshot...  a real beauty...  and couldn't resist...

This wee beastie is a small lifter designed to land back on struts under chutes to be recovered.  I couldn't resist putting wheels on it!  The main thing was to ensure that it could glide or fly under power to close in on either the KSC (full orbit return) or land very close to a Recovery Center on the Argentine (suborbital return to the next peninsula to the east across the sea from the KSC, payload permitting).

Credit to @Pthigrivi for the screenshot and presumably the cute design.

Third shot shows a full return to KSC on wheels.  Fourth shot shows a landing under chutes 600m from the target after a sub-orbital delivery of payload to 72km.

This was a joint collaboration with @Brikoleur who did a brave job of teaching me the finer points of balancing out components in a lifter and greatly improved my first effort.  Lots of fun!

The landing has to be very hot and none of my Kerbals want to attempt an out-landing this way.  Gots to have a runway!

This 1.3.1 rendition (of the original which was nameless) has been dubbed Spunk.  It uses 2 Vectors.

It just goes to prove that, in KSC, if you put 3 rudders on a barge, it will fly!! 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Hotel26

[Guest]

Career is progressing nicely. I just got back from my first interplanetary mission (Duna flyby with a quick visit to Ike's surface since I had the dV budget), and have some more permanent assets on their way there -- a relay constellation, a survey sat, and a space station with a lander. Two launches.

Next I'll need to grind some missions to have enough funds to upgrade my science centre to level 3 -- I want that ISRU and now have the Sci for it, but am lacking a few hundred grand in Funds. I will use these missions to develop a set of fully recoverable launchers (I now have the tech for that). Next transfer window, I want to have a Duna ground base ready to go: that means a STOL liaison / cargo shuttle, a command centre, ISRU + tanker, and a couple of science rovers. I also want to send up an intra-system shuttle / return vessel I can use to do rescue missions in the Duna system.

I've also got the Outer Planets mod installed this time. Once the Duna base is established, I want to build another one on Laythe or perhaps Val. They can be waystations towards the Outer Planets, or, more likely, for return missions from them -- I remember all the trouble I had bringing my kerbals back from Laythe last time, and my Duna base was vital to that.

KIS/KAS rules by the way. It's loads of fun to bolt things on, and I can't wait to set up a surface base where I can refuel things with hoses like a normal person would.

[NHunter]

Today, I've landed the EL workshop for my Ceti base. Unfortunately, no screenshots as it was a way too tense ordeal to do any. Plus, actual landing took place during a local night, so it was too dark to see much anyway (I still managed to land right on top of the flag I used as a target!). At least, my skycrane has a more than enough electric charge to keep things running in kinda-hibernation mode till next sunrise. Then, I discovered that I made a mistake and didn't pack enough Rocket Parts to actually build the hub of the future base. Thus, I'm sending a this little package:

A skycrane 2, carrying a container with 15200 Rocket Parts + the transfer stage to get it all into low Ceti orbit.

[Cavscout74]

Spent most of today passing time again, but my second set of Laythe explorers landed.   In addition, the reactor wing arrived for my Duna ground base, was landed & docked.

Pumera-Laythe #1 reentering, with Jool peaking over the horizon

Second crew safely on board the floating base to continue the aquatic research started by by the first crew

Pegasus-Duna base, with attached reactor wing, with the lander & refueling rover off in the distance.   I set the green lights to activate when I toggle the reactor on, so everyone knows to keep clear.

Day time view of the base

[Mignear]

It flies!

[Pipcard]

On 11/7/2018 at 5:09 PM, Kronus_Aerospace said:

I'm definitely gonna have to buy Bandicam at this point, I'm getting tired of that watermark.

You don't need to buy Bandicam, I use OBS and it's free.

[capi3101]

(1.4.5) Saturday was a pretty minimal day for me, game-wise; I tend to do the bulk of my RL household chores on Saturday, so this isn't too big of a surprise. Strange Cargo docked up at space station Kerbinport and I performed an ore-con job using the Boot Hill outpost at Mun. After some comments over on the Pathfinder thread I decided to give Waypoint Manager and Extraplanetary Launchpads a try, and found/installed the latest versions of those mods for 1.4.5. Still got three days to go before I begin investigating the switch to 1.5...

EL is a game-changer, y'all, if you didn't know that.

On Sunday after reading up on the resource chain that EL uses, I fired up the Ironworks facility at the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus for the first time and began the manufacturing of RocketParts there; construction of an Ironworks along with a Rangeland launch pad took place at Boot Hill on Mun; three Hogans were also deployed at Boot Hill before the day was out, and all that's left for me to build there at this point is a Pipeline mass driver - not bad for a base I was worried would be an utter failure not all that long ago. Boot Hill got the honor of the first craft construction and launch from somewhere other than KSC, printing up a Blip-Blip 7 probe - essentially a Beep-Beep 7 probe without the Kerbin booster or transfer stage - and launching the thing into a target orbit over Mun for contract; the probe was officially designated Mun Echo upon fulfilling the contract.

I had a contract to expand the Deepwater Horizon South Annex over the weekend, and not wanting to use the rover Fwot again to haul Equipment out there I decided to use DH's Rangeland to deploy a new type of rover, designated Gigalo 7; engineer Halbur Kerman and scientist Phobie Kerman returned to the DH South Annex aboard the newly printed craft despite significant unforeseen issues with the drive-train (used overpowered wheels for the mass of the craft, so it wanted to flip over end over end in Minmus's relatively low gravity) and began making the requested modifications. They came up short on Equipment and at this point are camped out at the outpost awaiting daybreak so they will have enough electrical charge to finish making the needed modifications. I'm thinking I'll leave the Gigalo out at the base as a permanent addition at this point; the two kerbals ought to be able to jetpack back to DH when their job is finished.

Other things that happened include the successful change of the Mun Delta probe's orbit for contract and the test of a Pathfinder gas generator in flight. Finally, I have another eight tourists headed for Minmus - Haldock, Berzer, Trasel, Wehrmin, Doemy, Veremone, Camsey and Eribin Kerman were loaded aboard an Auk II 8-passenger spaceplane, which made its way to space station Kerbinport and transferred over to Next Objective docked at the station with Val at the helm. Next Objective departed the station and burned for Minmus, and is scheduled to arrive in eight days. The last four of the tourists mentioned are going to DH as colonists. As the outpost is somewhat undermanned at the moment, their addition to the space program will be much welcomed.

Haven't got a whole lot done so far today. With a contract to put a new station over Mun and a contract to do a Pathfinder cryogenic study survey (which can only be done in orbit), I've designed the Munfart 7 orbital science laboratory; the plan is to print it up and deploy it from Boot Hill later today. I'll probably have to man the outpost with one of the two scientists currently at Boot Hill, leaving the outpost with just three kerbals present - barely enough to operate what has become a fairly large base. I'm hoping to get some more folks out that way in the very near future.

[Guest]

From the "let's not get cocky" department.

The mission: crew rotation from Munar orbital station. Three crew out, four crew in, including a surface rescue. 

The solution: MUNBUS-5. A rocket-powered SSTO carrying a 5-kerbal craft. SSTO flies to orbit, deploys Munar shuttle. Munar shuttle flies there, swaps crew, flies back, docks with SSTO, SSTO re-enters, lands. Recovered, everybody's happy, including the beancounters.

Simple thing, huh? The Brikoleur must've built a hundred, no two hundred, light SSTOs by now. No need for a lot of test flights; let's just slap one together, tune the CoM and CoL, and we're off. What could go wrong?

On the way out, nothing went wrong. SSTO flew up, deployed the Munar shuttle...

... the shuttle did its thing, came back, RV'ed with the SSTO with about a football field's worth of dV to spare, docked neatly. Nothing left but a routine re-entry.

Ouch.

Turns out our SSTO has the hypersonic aerodynamic stability of a maple leaf. Bit of a roller coaster ride down. The captain orders the passengers to prep for bailing out, but after some white-knuckle wrestling with the yoke, the craft is back under control -- if in a steep dive -- at around 10k altitude. A gradual pull back, and we're in a nice, shallow descent, although faaar from KSC due to the maple-leaf thing. Lining up for a bush landing in the desert. Nice and flat, plane glides well, has plenty of wing for a sub 50 m/s landing. Home and dry!

Uh, no.

We have a landing gear malfunction. Specifically, "cannot deploy while stowed." What in the...?

I've heard it said that there are two kinds of pilots, those who have made a gear-up landing, and those who are going to.

Ronster Kerman just joined the former group.

Only damage was the nose cone. All's well that ends well -- but this was a tense one!

Edited November 12, 2018 by Guest

[Lisias]

I made this for a test on KAX and… Hell, could not help but to embarrass myself.  

 

And to really embarrass myself, follows the KerbalX link:

https://kerbalx.com/Lisias/KAX-D25-Test

 

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Lisias
updating images URL

[Pthigrivi]

Been away from Kerbal for a while but getting back into into things. Off to Moho with my fancy new VASIMR engines



Mainly crewing up for a big-giant Jool 5 though. That lump of mismatched modules that the KSOI bus is pulling up to is basically the consequence of never de-orbiting anything. Junk like that is useful for a cobbled together crew-training transfer station. 



Noobs on the Mun!



Bob and Val finally back to base on Duna after surveying 4 biomes. Honestly Im just gonna have Mechjeb drive next time.



Moar Noobs on Minmus. I'm going for a total crew of 18 to Jool and Im close enough to having them all 3 stars.



Also fueling up from the Minmus mining op. Next save I might set up for fully orbital processing and just haul up ore. Less flexible but probably doesn't pay for the losses carting the convert-o-tron around.



The tanker is pretty efficient though. Aerobrake prediction really ought to be stock. 



Roasty toasty!



First module in orbit, drive section and mining equipment for Tylo and the outer moons. I usually ship everything up dry and fuel up and transfer straight from LKO. I should probably consider transferring topped off from Minmus...



Gonna need a lot of fertz! Trick is I've found to run your tankers so they arrive at Minmus' ascending and descending nodes so you don't waste on inclination burns. The timing works out nicely, about a 25 day turnaround. 

Edited November 13, 2018 by Pthigrivi

[Xurkitree]

Yesterday night, I messed with my modded KSP install.

I now don't recommend playing KSP at 1 am.

I wanted to see how hot a temperature I can get without blowing up.

Then my map screen broke

And then this happened

This is Danny levels of game break - I should have been destroyed years ago - infact I was destroyed, and the message did pop up, BUt some how i still continued.

Interstellar theme begins playing...

 

I blame Kopernicus

[Fearless Son]

Today in KSP I added three engineers to my space program, rescued from three derelicts, in a single launch.

[Klapaucius]

I managed to get my asymmetrical aircraft to takeoff and land without anyone dying!  This was for my own Asymmetrical Aircraft Challenge.  There are a lot of good entries.

 

 

[Chel]

I started a new career mode save, and got to orbit in around 20 minutes. A new personal best!

[MR L A]

12 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

We have a landing gear malfunction. Specifically, "cannot deploy while stowed." What in the...?

Turn advanced tweakables on > right click landing gear > click "deploy shielded" > problem solved

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, MR L A said:

Turn advanced tweakables on > right click landing gear > click "deploy shielded" > problem solved

I know. But I forgot.  

[Hydrothermalventclam]

I moved along my duna colonization mission.

First, I loaded up the mothership with crew

Then I transferred the mothership and the extra fuel plant to Duna.

The drills transferred separately so they  could take a faster trajectory, and thus land with time to refuel the vehicles already on Duna.

Landing the drills:

The mothership arriving at Duna:

At this point, the engineers realized that putting all the cargo directly in the engine plume might be a bad idea.

Then I loaded up the cargo shuttle with the first base module.

Docking stuff inside of a mk3 cargo bay is a pain.  

[putnamto]

had three contracts

1 space science around moon
2 science on surface of moon
3 saver kerbal in orbit of mun

i thought ill do a three for one, built a probe with an empty command pod, sent it to the moon, went for my rendevous and when i was trying to match speeds with my target the target ended up inside of the exhaust of my rocket and *ahem* "rocketed" away from me and spinning out of control, i quickly switched to the targets craft, thinking i could just EVA before it gets to far away, and as soon as he EVA'd he turned into a giant sphaggetti monster and stretched across the universe.....:(

[Hotel26]

Today, I am playing with surface mining, but large-scale, self-contained and a kind of "pop-up base".  Location, location, location.  If the current location is no-so-good, move on!

This is Goblin mounted atop my new WM-class Archer:

It's designed for Moho/Duna heat/grav or less.  Accommodation for 16 Kerbalers.  Refuel local machines on the surface as required or, when it is full, orbit it to a space dump and unload.

The landing struts are simply for extra stability upon touch-down on e.g. hilly Mohonian terrain and can be retracted after settlement to allow convenient ground-floor access to the 4 Hitchhikers.

On launch, Archer drew fuel from Goblin until apoapsis (75km) was reached, then detached.  Goblin circularized under its own steam.  Mission Control returned to Archer and returned it to a safe splash down for recovery.  (At some point, High Command may study the Career recovery rules and possibly use some kind of high-speed ocean-going tug to drag the lifter back to the KSC precincts for a better credit upon recovery.  But Career Mode is somewhat "above my pay grade", I have to say.  )

 

Edited November 13, 2018 by Hotel26

[magnemoe]

Landing planes 

An SSTO plane for use on Laythe, as ground might be uneven there the base ends up and I'm not an very good pilot I found this was one solution. 
Last part of the Jool flotilla with the plan to put an base on all the moons  

[Kebab Kerman]

On 11/10/2018 at 1:16 PM, Fraston said:

nothing, EVERYTHING ON STEAM  SAYS "Quit unexpectedly" APON STARTUP!!!  I UPDATED MY MAC TO TRY TO FIX IT, BUT IT DOESNT WORK! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Launch it from the folder. It always works. I'm on Windows 7, so it might be different for you, but it should work the same.

[Fraston]

It’s already fixed, I went into steam beta on Saturday and it fixed it.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Fraston

[Kebab Kerman]

Alright, time to share what I did at 4:30 in the morning. I flew this in RSS, and ran out of fuel before even getting a tenth of the way across the Atlantic.

Download

Terrible range, but when coupled with AtmosphereAutopilot, flies almost flawlessly, and keeps trying to stop getting closer to the ground, making for very soft landings when the engines are shut off or run out of fuel after 10 minutes. Probably going to replace the side fuel tanks with the stock ones (SXT has it's own for some odd reason) and extend them, removing the passenger door and replacing it with a mk1 fuel tank, and possibly even replacing a cabin or two to extend the range.