What did you do in KSP1 today?

[NorthernDevo]

27 minutes ago, Fraston said:

The Odin, a not entirely clumsy supersonic aircraft! (thats its speed 3 minutes after takeoff, not its top speed, its top speed is over 1250 at 11200 meters.)

COOL!!!!

 

[Cavscout74]

15 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Well done!  That's massive. 

I had no idea asteroids went that large...  (890t is the largest I've caught.)

As far as I remember (which isn't very far) that is the biggest I've caught.  It was actually more luck than skill - other than the inclination (~135 degrees), it came in to a 330km Pe before zooming back out again.  I just happened to notice it was going to encounter Kerbin a month or two before the encounter.  I already had one capture vehicle still attached to the previous one (~1200t IIRC) I caught & am now reducing to fuel.  Once the new asteroid got close, I matched its inclination, then did a normal rendezvous.  Of course, I only had something like 68 m/s of dV once I caught it due to the mass, but that was just enough (with help from the RCS) to close up the orbit with an Ap around 50 Mm.

The next vehicle I sent (with the 8 parachutes), I launched from Woomera & launched into the correct inclination, so I just had to do a rendezvous.  Of course, it doesn't have much dV either, so I just used a little to get the Pe into the atmosphere & I'll bring the Ap down that way.  Probably take a bunch of passes.  I'm saving the rest of the fuel for later.  Considering how big it is, I'm reconsidering trying to land it - getting it to a usable orbit & mining it dry would probably provide fuel for several years.  This career, I'm just about to start launching my crew cyclers interplanetary manned missions, so a steady source of fuel will be nice.  The inclination change will be brutal though - moving 2300t + whatever vehicle(s) doing the moving from 135 degrees to 0.  It will be easiest to launch another factory ship to do both the mining, ore processing & orbit changes.

2 hours ago, Fraston said:

The Odin, a not entirely clumsy supersonic aircraft!

Of all the uses I imagined for the new lander can, being an aircraft cockpit was not one of them.  Nice work!!

Edited January 3, 2019 by Cavscout74

[Triop]

Today we worked on our service truck

#Dakar 2019

[MaverickSawyer]

Launched the core of my asteroid redirect ship this morning. I have a Class-C rock 10 days out from Kerbin's SoI, and once it enters, it's on a path to become the next Tunguska. The Terminal High-Acceleration Asteroid Defender (THAAD) is to head out and push the PeA out of the atmosphere and, if sufficient dV remains, insert it into a captured orbit for later exploitation. The next launch will be a tanker to refuel the launch stage of THAAD so that THAAD proper doesn't have to expend nearly as much dV getting to the asteroid. This will be followed by launches with the grapple unit for THAAD and the crew vehicle, the supply ship carrying the science instruments, and finally, the crew vehicle proper. I'm not optimistic about capture, but I know I can swing the divert.

Edited January 3, 2019 by MaverickSawyer
Stupid autocorrect...

[capi3101]

58 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Launched the core of my asteroid redirect ship this morning. I have a Class-C rock 10 days out from Kerbin's SoI, and once it enters, it's on a path to become the next Tunguska. The Terminal High-Acceleration Asteroid Defender (THAAD) is to head out and push the PeA out of the atmosphere and, if sufficient dV remains, insert it into a captured orbit for later exploitation. The next launch will be a tanker to refuel the launch stage of THAAD so that THAAD proper doesn't have to expend nearly as much dV getting to the asteroid. This will be followed by launches with the grapple unit for THAAD and the crew vehicle, the supply ship carrying the science instruments, and finally, the crew vehicle proper. I'm not optimistic about capture, but I know I can swing the divert.

Some old, but still very much applicable advice that might be helpful to you. If you can get ahold of it early, it doesn't take much delta-V to raise the periapsis. 50,000-47,500 m should be low enough to get you an aero-capture without blowing anything up (I say that; quicksave first). Rock's going to weigh 191 tonnes at most, probably less than that. A J64 with a Skipper will give you roughly 500 m/s of delta-V, more than enough for a stable capture.

[Tyko]

On 1/2/2019 at 1:36 PM, TrooperCooper said:

So cool!! How many launches did it take to get that beast into orbit?

Also, on this pic the big round tank looks like a mini death star   

[Triop]

Well, some customer wasn't happy . . . .

No idea who did that . . .

NO MORE HOT DOGS !

Btw, we got some new sponsors.

 

[JadeOfMaar]

I sent additional crew in a science retrieval vehicle up to my polar observatory station. Part of the crew's job was to install extra docking ports to enable proper "Control From Here" for guiding the WBI "DenEye" telescope which contains a TST camera. Things got a little trippy while trying to operate precisely but the camera is swinging at the station passes exact North/South.

 

This stand-up guy child of a science plane and its launcher were deployed. The plane doesn't pitch easily and can't pass Mach 1, so the launcher's purpose was to give a headstart to where the plane was going. It managed a peak altitude of 44km but only maybe 1/5 the ground distance, but it got a golden opportunity for high alt science.

 

Sandbox fun and learning with Pathfinder features I haven't used ever, or since its release(s) for KSP 1.5, and the new, tall, 3.75m EL part near the drills. By juggling timewarp I managed to get the rover to fall through the ground and explode for several seconds afterwards and I really enjoyed the pulsating LED emissive on Ven's fuel cells.

[Triop]

21 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Cool base, you should include a Hot Dog stand and then it would be perfect.

[NHunter]

I've been playing around with KerbalHacks and hacked together a working EL launchpad from those parts (welded together into a single part)

And, yeah, I was crazy enough to experiment in live career game 

[MaverickSawyer]

1 hour ago, capi3101 said:

Some old, but still very much applicable advice that might be helpful to you. If you can get ahold of it early, it doesn't take much delta-V to raise the periapsis. 50,000-47,500 m should be low enough to get you an aero-capture without blowing anything up (I say that; quicksave first). Rock's going to weigh 191 tonnes at most, probably less than that. A J64 with a Skipper will give you roughly 500 m/s of delta-V, more than enough for a stable capture.

Well, I'm running BDB, so I'm throwing what amounts to a Saturn 1 first stage up there as my divert system. Decent TWR, plenty of dV, and it'll allow me to be somewhat aggressive with my intercept maneuver. I'd use Cryo Engines-powered parts, but the actively cooled tanks haven't been unlocked yet, so I'd wind up with no fuel at the asteroid... Not exactly a good start.

[Arrowstar]

I know it's not quite "in KSP" but I continued working in my KSP Trajectory Optimization Tool's "Launch Vehicle Designer" application.  I'm currently developing a full up simulation of an end-to-end mission to the Mun and back again.  I have the following goals:

1. Simulate a realistic launch of a vehicle that utilizes asparagus staging to achieve a direct injection to a trans-Munar orbit.  Include realistic gravity, drag, and engine throttling.
2. Simulate a realistic Munar deorbit and landing, ascent and Munar departure, including a realistic stay duration on the surface of the Mun.
3. Simulate a realistic arrival back at Kerbin, including jettison of the service module, re-entry, parachute deployment and landing.

It's looking pretty good so far!

Simulation of the launch trajectory:

Simulation of Munar arrival, stay, and departure:

Simulation of Kerbin return, re-entry, and landing:

KSPTOT, including Launch Vehicle Designer, is available at the link I provided above.  Feel free to check it out and PM me if you have questions.   Happy orbiting!

[Cavscout74]

Not too much accomplished today - another aerobraking pass with my big asteroid.  Then I only had 3 launches - 2 for Moho, including a tanker & a manned lander for an upcoming transfer window, and 1 for Eve for that window coming up just after the Moho window.  The Eve launch was the interesting (& time consuming) one.

Asteroid aerobraking pass #2

So I wanted to send a rover to Eve, but with clouds, it's impossible to know tell if you're going to come down on land.  So I decided to stick a remote rover inside a rocket-glider and send that to Eve.  With over 3 km/s dV, pointing towards a suitable landing spot shouldn't be an issue.

Kerbin flight testing - the only part that didn't work well was the disposable gear for a horizontal takeoff.  The actual glider flew alright

Rover jettison & parachute deployment

After landing, the folding wheels are deployed & the nose & tail get jettisoned, allowing the rover to drive clear & begin operations.

Night launch of the Eve Glide-Rover.  It uses a modified version of my Olympic 2.5m launcher.  It was a little wild getting it to orbit, but it worked. 

In orbit, ready for Eve transfer. 

[Triop]

GRAND OPENING ! !1 !  SOON™ ! ! !

Edited January 4, 2019 by Triop

[NHunter]

I've redone my Ceti outpost using my new toy as its core.

Same functionality as the old one + actually-working launchpad for EL-made rockets, and in 33% less parts to boot (down to 47!). And, finally, my game doesn't slow down to a crawl the moment I switch to this base. Landing here might require some skill, but 24x24m target should be easy enough to land on, and it's not like I'm doing horizontal landings, so those radiators should be safe.

[Tonka Crash]

My exploration of Duna/Ike continues. The ground team got a contract to investigate Cydunia and found the face on Duna. It doesn't look like much from the ground.

But once you do a flyover the face is obvious. One word of warning if someone gets this and does it like I did. Don't use the contract waypoint as a Bon Voyage target, offset it a little bit. Bon Voyage parked my rover under the face and caused it to explode on scene load. I ended up editing a backup save file to change the Bon Voyage target and reactivate it to navigate the rover a couple kilometers away and manually drove to the final position. I had no idea if that would even work before I tried it, otherwise I was going to be looking for a backup from hours before.

Meanwhile in orbit, the expedition mothership got a contract to plant a flag on Ike. Scans from the repositioned survey satellite had detected an anomaly, so that was the obvious place to touchdown. This was at a fairly high latitude and I ended up burning more fuel than I would have liked getting close to the monolith. I didn't have a good fix until I spotted it on final descent and had to move the touchdown location about a kilometer. The trickiest part was plotting an intercept of the mothership around Duna from a highly inclined orbit of Ike with the fuel load I had left. If it had come down to it I have a backup lander on the mothership I could use for a rescue.

[Triop]

Todays visitors: 2x MiG 29 4008/4086

[TrooperCooper]

20 hours ago, Tyko said:

So cool!! How many launches did it take to get that beast into orbit?

Also, on this pic the big round tank looks like a mini death star   

 

Thanks.

 

The ship itself is actually self-lifting... with a minimum of fuel loadout it has an atmospheric TWR of 1.4something and still 15k dV. Since the engines provide no gimbal and it is very unaerodynamic, it however has to climb slowly vertically out of the atmosphere and then pull into a horizontal turn. Once periapsis is burned out it has to be filled up with about 2,000 tons of resources to become operational ready though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[capi3101]

Happy New Year, y'all! I hope y'all had a pleasant holiday season, and that you, like me, found at least some time to Kerbal. At this point my log is two weeks long, so I figured it was high time to give y'all a report. I'll do my best to keep it brief, but there's a lot of ground to cover.

Earliest entry in my log comes from December 21^st, a day which began with refueling mass driver shots between the Swamp Castle outpost near KSC and the orbiting space station Kerbinport. An Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane that had departed Kerbinport the day before landed safely at KSC 09 with engineer Sulan Kerman and tourists Marus and Sarah Kerman aboard, fulfilling Sulan's rescue contract. Sulan was immediately loaded aboard an Auk XII 6-passenger spaceplane and flew back to Kerbinport, embarking aboard the ferry ship Strange Cargo docked at the station upon her arrival. Strange Cargo then departed Kerbinport with Jeb at the helm along with Sulan, Val and tourists Derble, Rado, Phobrett and Anger Kerman aboard; the ship wouldn't arrive at Minmus until December 26^th. meanwhile a new probe core for the nearby Wisent 7a utility rover was printed up at the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun; once installed, the rover was sent on an attempt to fulfill a 5-waypoint temperature survey mission 50 kilometers to the west of Piper Alpha, with three of those waypoints in flight. The rover completed the job at two of the waypoints but crashed during the landing attempt on its way to the third waypoint.

The remains of the Wisent post-crash. Could've been worse. Could've cost me money...

Having not quicksaved ahead of time, I decided I'd finish up the survey later. In the meantime, construction of the Dystopia Planitia 7 orbital shipyard I at Piper Alpha was completed and the new outpost was launched to a 25 kilometer equatorial orbit of Mun. Upon reaching its final orbit, the station was christened as the Non Caseus Yards. The new outpost's first job was the printing of a Stevie Wonder 7 solar observatory, which owing to the fact that NCY was launched un-crewed delayed production. Back at Piper Alpha, a fresh Mosquito 7 ground survey probe-lander was printed up in a further attempt to find a suitable location for a new Mun base (read suitable as: has all of the prerequisite resources necessary to print up Pathfinder Equipment on site using the fastest available method). The Mosquito hit the Highland Craters, Poles, Polar Lowlands, Southwest Crater and Northeast Basin successfully, crashing out during an attempt to land at the Polar Crater (in which I was still able to get the readings I wanted). None of those biomes proved suitable. Yet another Mosquito was printed at PA on December 22^nd and I hit the remaining biomes, ultimately discovering that no single Mun biome would be suitable for a Mun base; having encountered this phenomenon already (kinda) with the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus, my thoughts turned to possibly putting the base near a biome boundary. I had a couple of outstanding surveys to complete on Mun, so I finished up my day on the 22^nd with the printing of a venerable Hellhound 7 rover along with its skycrane at Piper Alpha. Meanwhile, the existing Hound near the Armstrong Memorial was dispatched to check the boundary region between the Northwest Crater and the surrounding Midlands. While the corresponding area did have the necessary mix of resources, the terrain was slightly uncooperative in the surveyed region.

If any of y'all ever wonder why I still use a rover I designed all the way back in v0.18 - something going on six years old now - this sort of thing is why. The edges of those big craters are no joke...

On the 23^rd, the new Hellhound finished printing and flew to a survey site on Mun 200 kilometers east of Piper Alpha, hitting all three waypoints of a seismic survey successfully. An ore con job took place between Piper Alpha, Swamp Castle and Kerbinport for money, after which I began a pair of Pathfinder science experiments, one at Deepwater Horizon and the other at Piper Alpha. PA's scientist didn't have the necessary chutzpah to begin the experiment on his own, so to that end I designed and printed up the Venkmann 7 science probe-lander at Piper Alpha, flying it just off the base's launch pad to conduct the experiment. (Yes, I misspelled it - there's only one 'n' in the name. Oh well). A new Hellhound was printed up at Piper Alpha on Christmas Eve; the rover conducted a survey of a promising boundary area near the Mun's Northeast Basin; alas, that turned out to be a wash. A Spamcan 7a 4-kerbal lander was also printed up at Piper Alpha. Once it was complete, engineers Ceri and Gemlorf Kerman went up to the Non Caseus Yards to begin production of the Stevie Wonder telescope. Ceri proved to be as detrimental to production at NCY as she had been at PA, so she was dispatched to go pick up scientist Roddon Kerman at space station Munport on Christmas Day. The two kerbals traded positions upon the Spamcan's arrival and Roddon went to NCY, leaving Ceri in operational command of Munport. Once the telescope was completed, Roddon boarded the new craft, fuel was shot up and the telescope launched on a mission to conduct a Pathfinder Gravioli wave experiment.

The Non Caseus Yards with the Stevie Wonder telescope ready for launch in its drydock.

Shortly thereafter, construction of the Non Mentha Yards was completed at Deepwater Horizon; the new outpost launched into a 22 kilometer low orbit over Minmus with rescuee engineer Nadard Kerman aboard.

NMY at launch. This is probably the first good pic I've got of a launch from Deepwater Horizon to boot...

Rigs for contracts at Mun and Minmus were designed, with construction beginning at Non Caseus and Non Mentha, respectively. NCY had a simple parts testing rig to build; the test was a success and the rig was subsequently sent to crash into Mun. NMY, on the other hand, was being utilized to fulfill a contract to put a new station over Minmus; its rig consisted of the additional facilities required and a docking rig. While construction of this rig was underway, Strange Cargo arrived at space station Minmusport. The Spamcan 7 2-person monoprop lander at DH was sent up to Minmusport after refueling and docked successfully, at which time Sulan joined Nadard aboard NMY. The two of them finished printing the new module together, and after it was docked to the outpost, construction of a Ray Charles 7 telescope commenced; the telescope would be given the task of completing an asteroid mapping contract, looking for Class E rocks threatening Kerbin. Construction of the telescope was completed on December 27^th, at which point it was fueled, launched from NMY and burned to the target periapsis over Kerbol - it won't arrive for another 217 days.

Ray Charles telescope burning over Minmus on a Kerbin escape trajectory.

In the meantime, yet another Hellhound rover was printed up at Piper Alpha, and another ore con job took place. Construction of a McFeely 7 science speedy delivery probe lander commenced at Deepwater Horizon anticipating the completion of a Pathfinder experiment there; said experiment finished up in rapid order and the probe launched from DH.

And a speedy delivery to you too...last screenie for today, sadly.

The probe arrived with the experiment safely at Kerbin on December 29^th. Meanwhile, with their principal tasks completed, Nadard departed NMY for Minmusport, boarding Strange Cargo upon her arrival. Two excursions to the surface then took place, with Jeb and Val planting flags and tourists Rado and Derble going for a quick jaunt to the surface. Once they returned and with the ship's business at Minmus completed, Strange Cargo departed and burned to return to Kerbin. The three extant Hellhound rovers on the Mun's surface were designated as Rogues 1-3, and upon its completion, the new Hound was designated as Rogue 4, which was then launched to finish up the temperature survey the Wisent had failed to complete; the new rover completed the mission successfully. December 27^th finished up with another Minmus ore con job and construction commencing of a G-LOC 7 1-kerbal return-to-Kerbin craft at the Dystopia Planitia Yards over Kerbin, with a job to return Bill to the surface. A new crew for the upcoming Mun outpost - pilot Billy-Bobcal Kerman, scientist Wenmy Kerman and engineers Chadul and Pamal Kerman - was also hired.

Not much happened on the 28^th - a new variant of the TBD 7 rover was designed, with emphasis on being able to establish a pair of distributed bases for the upcoming Mun mission. Satisfied that the new design would work properly, construction of the new design commenced at NCY.

On the 29^th, the fifth Mun Hellhound rover - Rogue 5 - was constructed at Piper Alpha and sent to another potential outpost site along a boundary between the Munar Midlands and Highlands along the equator. This time I hit pay-dirt; the boundary zone had the necessary resources between the two nearby biomes along with flat areas within physics range of one another. Printing of the G-LOC completed at Dystopia Planitia and Bill affected a safe return to the surface. A new Superfortress 7 ferry craft - dubbed Next Objective - was launched from KSC with Billy-Bobcal at the helm along with Pamal, Chadul, Wenmy, Bill, scientist Kathald Kerman and pilots Gregald and Geofbles aboard, on a flag-planting training mission. The ship's first port-of-call after launch was Munport; after arriving, Ceri was picked up and the eight other staff aboard conducted a pair of surface excursions for training. After everyone was back aboard and the craft was refueled, Next Objective departed for Kerbin, where a 65 m/s slingshot maneuver took place to send the craft on to Minmus. The day ended with the return of the McFeely 7 fron Minmus, successfully completing the required contract. Refueling mass driver shots took place between Piper Alpha and Munport on the 30^th.

New Year's Eve began with the completion of the TBD 7b at NCY, with the necessary mass driver shots to tool-up the base-seeding rover shortly thereafter. The Venkmann probe on Mun completed its mission and launched for Kerbin, making a successful splashdown and fulfilling its contract. Strange Cargo returned to Kerbinport from its jaunt to Minmus, and Jeb transferred to a Minnow 7 ferry craft docked at the station to go pick up scientist Willin Kerman and bring him back to the station. After Jeb returned, Willin, Nadard, Derble, Rado and Phobrett boarded the waiting Auk XII still docked at the station and returned safely to KSC 09, fulfilling four contracts and bringing 2018 to a satisfying conclusion. 

This past Wednesday was a bit trying. A new Venkmann probe design meant solely for return from LKO - the Venkmann 7a - was printed up at Dystopia Planitia and launched but didn't have any ResearchKits aboard, requiring the probe to be scrapped and a new one to be printed up. Printing of an adequate supply of Kits began but didn't finish up until a few RL hours ago. An SCSS 7 garbage collection lander was printed up at NMY and Sulan went down in the new ship to pick up the target - which turned out to be a Hitchhiker Module; at 2.5 tonnes, she'll need help before she can lift that garbage off Minmus's surface. Two kerbal scientists are in orbit right now and I'll be taking steps to send them that way at the next opportunity. Printing of a NERVA engine testing rig at DH took place and the test was successful, and while the subsequent dismantling of the rig went largely according to plan, it took a bit longer than anticipated. Another ore con took place and scientist Ribsted Kerman was safely rescued from Minmus's lowlands.

Yesterday and for the better part of today, I decided the time had come to revisit the design of my old Heighliner 7 Alcubierre drive tug. After analyzing the old ship, I made functional changes that would change it from a dedicated tug to a full-blown mothership (in the Homeworld sense) - a warp-capable ship capable of printing up new craft in-situ. I also rectified a few of the Heighliner's shortcomings, adding a dedicated set of more powerful engines and removing docking ports in areas that proved cumbersome. The new ship - dubbed the Muad'dib 7 - conducted an 11-day test flight to Duna yesterday using the slow transit method, proving the design works. After resetting the save this morning, a Dystopia Planitia 7 craft was launched in my litterbox save and a Muad'dib craft was printed successfully, where tests were conducted to check to see if a sufficient amount of exotic matter could be generated to power the warp drive while still in orbit of Kerbin. The test was a success and the craft has been transferred over to my career save for operational use. Printing of additional storage units for the necessary RocketParts commenced at Swamp Castle, and in the meantime the Research Kits were shot up to the new Venkmann probe at Dystopia Planitia. The probe was launched and began its scientific mission; it should complete it in about sixteen days.

 

Well, that was longer than I'd hoped. TL, DR: I did a bunch of stuff involving the Pathfinder, Extraplanetary Launchpads and Alcubierre Drive mods that was pretty cool. At least it was to me anyway...

Edited January 4, 2019 by capi3101

[Magzimum]

I play this game since 2016. And I still forget my parachutes sometimes. This is an early career return craft from the Mun, where the word "return"  is used rather carelessly.

Jeb is somehow still excited...

 

[Triop]

Going for a ride, Dutch NF-5 K-3007 (retired)

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by Triop

[NorthernDevo]

12 minutes ago, Triop said:

Going for a ride, Dutch NF-5 K-3007 (retired)

 

Sheesh; you guys always blow me away with your creativity. 

I can see building a MiG-17; the parts looks similar. 

How the blazes do you build a flippin' Tigershark?!?!?!

Too cool.

[Lisias]

In these first days of 2019, I got too tired to do anything "productive" (as give maintenance to my Add'Ons, or to do something really interesting on KSP). But not so tired I could go to bed.

So I waste some hours of my life doing stupid things on KSP. As these two crafts:

(KerbalX)

 

(KerbalX)

The naming is a "homage" to some public and private services I'm integrating this week.  

Edited March 20, 2019 by Lisias
tasting my own medicine :)

[ARS]

Nothing fancy to build today, just a small helicopter buzzing around

[Geonovast]

This... is new.