What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Castille7]

15 minutes ago, Triop said:

I'm still tuning my Viper muscle car, I just love working on this thing.

@Castille7 & @klond I would be honored if my car could be in your next video, let me know what you think.

We sure can!! Please be patient these have been about 3 months apart. I'm sure Klond will agree, he's cool like that! 

[Triop]

3 minutes ago, Castille7 said:

We sure can!! Please be patient these have been about 3 months apart. I'm sure Klond will agree, he's cool like that!

Thanks, I have all the time. I love your editing, I don't know how to do that yet with my videos.

Get in contact with me if you need something.

[Francois424]

Did some more roving on Mars whiles testing the "HeapPadder" mod... Still unsure the mod is working well, but I did notice that when my game stutters, my Kerbals are exposed to a flashing light.  Even in IVA I can see the flashing light, and game stutters when that happens.
No Idea what this is all about, so not much I can do about it unless anyone has any idea.
Also I did promise a blue Martian sunset yesterday.  Night caught on to me as I was testing, enjoy !

[NHunter]

Today I planted a flag on Hadrian

[Retro Starship]

Still a new KSP guy, I redid the career mode of this game (completed the simple ones in the demo). This latest release 1.8.1 has so many tiers. Looks like fun.

Got to the third tier and was asked to bring 4 passengers into suborbital space. Made this simple rocket, 4 stages of RT-10 hammers. Yea, no liquid fuels in this run. Wanted to give my four passengers a small bit of a G-force on this launch. lol No one passed out with a light 7 g's but had to arc a bit to the east to make sure the cabin landed safely in the water.

Had Jeb bring Dufen, Savey, Coroly and Newski into a 110km Ap to enjoy a bit of space for while in this simple machine.

 

Now onto to get 3 surveys done, below 18km for more science this time. Maybe I'll make a jet to get there and save the rockets for higher stuff. See ya!

Edited November 3, 2019 by Saturn5tony

[Okhin]

Needed to bring fuel to LKO in an efficient way, I'm 1000 liter short for a contract. So, instead of just strapping SRBs to a tank and launch them, I tried to build a spaceplane 5I'm not a big fan of them, landing them is hellish and in general it's easier for me to just build a rocket).

So, got this. Atmospheric flight is OK, but I could probably use a little more thrust, need to figure out where I can put the engine. I'm not sure either if I need that many intakes though (there's still 8 air breathing engine in the back).

But that's my first spaceplane (except the microjet I did to try to get a grasp at it). And it's flying. Slow, but it's flying. And it carries 9300 unit of liquid fuel, and 4500 of oxidizer. So, I guess it should do the trick.

[Cavscout74]

This was a weekend of testing - first check flight after some changes to my B-52 equivalent, then a modified version of my standard spaceplane design, and finally an underwater exploration probe for Laythe.

Mostly minor changes to the B-52, but a nice shot of it flying past KSC:

CS-05 prototype taking off as the sun was just starting to light the horizon

As it climbed through the clouds, the sun slipped over the horizon & lit everything up

In orbit, performing transfer to Mun:

Matching velocity with Mun station

Had to pause my docking here to retract the antenna & the station solar panels for safety.  The inline docking port works, but the target indicators don't line up so there is a lot of estimating trying to dock - even when I made contact it wiggled around for at least 5 seconds before it decided to actually capture the station docking port.

After transmitting his work so far, the lonely scientist on board transferred to the CF-05 for the trip home.  Only grabbed a single screenshot on the multiple aerobraking passes.  I was pretty gentle with it, which ended up nearly costing me the spaceplane & crew - overshot KSC, and landed on fumes after turning around.

Final test was a new drone submarine for underwater science gather & exploration on Laythe.  Initial tests performed by a wheeled cradle that drove off the end of the runway into the water.  The aft end was too heavy - either it floated nose up or if I filled the nose ballast tank, it sank.  But it handled pretty good under power

Beached for recovery, with the science bay open

Improved version with a second aft ballast tank, which greatly improved buoyancy & balance.  I can adjust the balance so it is almost perfectly neutral when stopped underwater.

The final version got a DMagic Submersible oceanography & bathymetry experiment mounted to the belly.  Delivery is by parachute after jettisoning the fairing & heatshield.  There is even a jettisonable nose impact plate to absorb the initial splashdown just in case.  The single test occurred at night (of course) but went off pretty much perfectly.  I need to add something to slow down the reentry stage - it tends to flip nose first instead of heatshield first, which puts the payload in danger when the fairing is staged - it didn't break anything this time, but it needs imiprovements.  The parachutes & splashdown plate worked as intended though

Floating on the surface after splashdown

[Retro Starship]

3 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

Mostly minor changes to the B-52, but a nice shot of it flying past KSC:

CS-05 prototype taking off as the sun was just starting to light the horizon

Wow.. so cool!  

[klond]

On 11/2/2019 at 6:08 PM, Triop said:

I'm still tuning my Viper muscle car, I just love working on this thing.

 That's a dope car, and I can appreciate your long-standing dedication to KSP automobiles.  @Castille7 is the video guy, I'm just his builder.  I'm sure he'll hook you up, but videos are few and far between.

 I'm just returning from a long time away from KSP, but I'll have him add a vehicle in where we can.

[Cavscout74]

2 hours ago, Saturn5tony said:

Wow.. so cool!  

Thanks!

@Hotel26 This one's for you:  So I was between launches, waiting for an asteroid capture vehicle & a Minmus tourist lander to build, and I decided to take another crack at scoring a hit with my ASAT missile.  I needed hyperedit (to land the launch plane before it "poofed") and mechjeb for the precise maneuvers.   Theodred Kerman, my sole 3-star pilot at KSC while Jeb & Val are away on Duna, suited up to take a CF-03 Phoenix up for another shot.  I stripped the fins off the ASAT because at the 40+ km launch altitude, they're mostly just wasted mass. 

The Targetsat (seriously, that is what I named it) was passing 90 degrees before KSC as Theodred started his takeoff roll.  Takeoff & climb was nominal, with the Theodred taking the Phoenix past mach 3 while climbing at a 10 degree angle. 

Nearing 20km, it was time to pull back for the zoom climb.  He managed to get an Ap of over 52 km before the Whiplash flamed out.  Carefully holding as close to straight up as possible, he waited till passing 50km to launch the ASAT.

With the highest launch altitude so far & slightly lower mass from removing fins, the ASAT managed to get an Ap above 300km before booster burn-out.  Even before any fancy maneuvers by the kill vehicle, the closest approach marker was showing <5km.  Up to this point, everything was done by hand.  Pictured here, the kill vehicle SAS is set to Target, so it is facing backwards as it climbs to Ap.

Descending now, the  Targetsat has just passed the terminator line.  The first mechjeb maneuver brought the closest approach down to 1.4 km, and the second one dropped it down to ~60m

There is no way I could've done this without mechjeb - closest approach is now down to 11.2m, target range 19.7km, closure rate 1104.9 m/s.   I'd never had two objects come anywhere close to that much of a closure rate this close, so it was stunning just how fast everything happened.  I had to reload a quicksave & redo the last 60 seconds of the approach simply because my brain didn't register that I was closing at more than a kilometer per second and I hadn't set the KAC alarms to pause the first time - one second I was nearly 2 km from the target & an instant later I was past it.

Another 0.1-0.2 m/s adjustment & down to just over a meter at closest approach.  I don't normally like taking screenshots with the UI visible, but there was no way to see anything worthwhile without keeping it open. 

Kerbal Alarm Clock was set to pause at 1 second before closest approach.  Target is currently 1098m with a closure rate of 1102.5 m/s.  Closest approach is down to less than a meter - if my computer & KSP were fast enough, this would be a hit

Who knew Kerbal Alarm Clock could set alarms to the tenth of a second?  I didn't till now.  Unfortunately, it paused the game just barely past the Targetsat (only 4m distance to target) & with the game paused, I couldn't change view to see it.  The kill vehicle SAS hasn't even had a chance to react to passing the target

After the kill vehicle impacted the ocean, I switched to Targetsat & smashed it with the Object Thrower - it definitely should've been hit by the ASAT

 

[Hotel26]

7 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

@Hotel26 This one's for you

Well, @Cavscout74,  I can't think of any better use for this, my Post #1 Thousand, than to congratulate you on an Outstanding Achievement.  Way to go, fella!!  You have the Right Stuff! 

[Zeiss Ikon]

That's impressive, @Cavscout74, I wouldn't have believed even MechJeb could get that close at that kind of closure rate.  It's all I can do to get the right orbit...

[TheKSPBeginner]

The sun is beautiful

Edited November 4, 2019 by TheKSPBeginner
Also, great job with that ASAT

[RizzoTheRat]

7 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

Who knew Kerbal Alarm Clock could set alarms to the tenth of a second?  I didn't till now.  Unfortunately, it paused the game just barely past the Targetsat (only 4m distance to target) & with the game paused, I couldn't change view to see it.  The kill vehicle SAS hasn't even had a chance to react to passing the target

Wow, impressive.  Could you make some kind of fragmentation warhead with a faring in multiple sections or a collection of decouplers that you stage just before impact?

[Lisias]

Velociteze MAX.

Because, sometimes, I just can't help myself.  

Edited November 5, 2019 by Lisias
updating link

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Not all that much to show for my weekend - had fairly busy days both Saturday and Sunday, so not a whole lot accomplished either day. Still largely trying to get into the swing of things in the wake of the establishment of the Usumacinta base on Tylo.

The next contract I decided to focus upon was the one I have to lift a 1.3 tonne piece of garbage off of the surface of Eve. From the mass and dimensions I'm pretty sure the required module will be a Buffalo ISRU unit; working under that assumption I found a service bay into which one would fit (the 3.75m model, unfortunately) and then began the process of designing an Eve-launch vehicle that should get it off of the surface. I present to y'all the Woodsy Owl 7.

Remember, when you're exploring space, give a hoot - don't pollute. 

Like other Eve-launch vehicles, my philosophy here is just to get the damn thing off the surface and into orbit and let another craft take it from there. I've done a three tonne payload before, so this wasn't terribly difficult to come up with. I am a little concerned about whether or not the craft will have enough delta-V based on what KER is telling me but all the other numbers say it should fly. Naturally the big trick will be to get the payload itself to the Alexander L. Kielland outpost for the launch, and then get it mounted to the rocket; due to its mass, it's a two-kerbal job and I want to try to mount it towards the bottom so I don't have to add infrastructure to mount it to the nose. It's generally bad design for a rocket to have it's payload aft but I'm hoping it won't be an issue until the final stage (i.e. when there won't be a whole lot of air resistance to flip the damn rocket around anyway).

Decided to go ahead and see where exactly the payload is on Eve's surface.

Well, that figures, doesn't it?

Looks like I'll have another long flight across Eve at some point in the near future. In the meantime, construction of the Woodsy Owl has commenced at ALK; construction is expected to take 31.5 hours. A Bill Clinton 7c probe to haul the payload back to Kerbin from there has been ordered up at the Caue Serpente Yards in orbit; construction there should only take 5.5 hours. Saturday wrapped up with some drilling at the Bohai 2 base on Bop and the Scan Queen base on Ike for contracts. While at Ike, I noted the base finally had printed up enough Konkrete to deploy its Observatory - which apparently hadn't happened up until now. I can finally say that construction at Scan Queen is now 100% complete at long last. Base has only been in existence for at least half a year...

Yesterday not much happened at all. I had Lutop board an Echo Flyer at KSC and since she needed to head out to the South Base outpost near KSC anyway, I went ahead and decided to kill to birds with one stone and have pilot Kimfrid Kerman join him. The two pilots proceeded to fly out to a target zone about 630 kilometers northwest of KSC.

Target zone wasn't particularly difficult. Most notably, it was all on land, which is always a plus.

Kimfrid took surface samples at three of the waypoints and an EVA report at the fourth, fulfilling the conditions of the contract. As of this morning the Flyer is still at the target area; I'll probably be sending it to South Base later today to drop off Kimfrid before sending Lutop home.

Don't quite know what I'll be doing today. I hope to finish up my two drilling delivery contracts and then it's on to Mission Control for fresh contracts. Probably fly the Flyer a bit of course, and I might get started on the journey to get that garbage off of Eve. Still am considering sending LSV House Harkonnen back to Kerbin with the G-LOC it's hauling to move exploration along; that might happen, it might not. Not really all that much to report to y'all today. Hope to have more for y'all tomorrow.

[Retro Starship]

This weekend I did a quick suborbit with 4 passengers using only 4 RT-10's solid fuels (as I already showed before), last night tho I did one with 6 passengers, with a use of mostly liquid fuels and a pair of small RT-5 flea's solids for another part of my career. Using that awesome LV-T45 "Swivel" engine I got to well over 135km into space as opposed to 110k. It was not the 6 G's of force of the earlier one but a nice comfortable 2 at most for this launch. One of my passengers already complained about it being too fast. His name is reprinted below with the passenger list. Valentina did not like him.

Here is my spacecraft called the "Von Braun Express 7" on the launch pad. Got them down fine in the water but only had to make sure I got a slope of about 10 degree's or so at most.

 

Here is the passenger list, with that very interesting character on board. (lol)

He did not want to go to fast! Good thing he was not on the Solid rocket fuel ONLY ship!!

[Geonovast]

I'm not sure why, but I felt like buzzing one shuttle with another.

[Retro Starship]

2 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I'm not sure why, but I felt like buzzing one shuttle with another.

Hahaha! Wow, I would have hit the standing shuttle in a second with the way I fly at the moment! With power or not!

[Angelo Kerman]

@capi3101 Three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, just sayin, Mr. Owl.

[capi3101]

7 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

@capi3101 Three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, just sayin, Mr. Owl.

Different owl, but I'll keep the name in mind the next time I build anything onion-staged...

[Cavscout74]

8 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Well, @Cavscout74,  I can't think of any better use for this, my Post #1 Thousand, than to congratulate you on an Outstanding Achievement.  Way to go, fella!!  You have the Right Stuff! 

Thanks & grats on your 1000th post.

 

8 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

That's impressive, @Cavscout74, I wouldn't have believed even MechJeb could get that close at that kind of closure rate.  It's all I can do to get the right orbit...

Honestly, I was happy when it got to double digits closest approach.  Almost half of its course corrections actually increased the closest approach once I was getting to the last 60 seconds.  I had to set the desired distance to something like 0.0001 meters to get it to adjust close enough to consider it a hit

8 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

Wow, impressive.  Could you make some kind of fragmentation warhead with a faring in multiple sections or a collection of decouplers that you stage just before impact?

The problem is each craft is traveling so fast and are relatively small so they go through each other within one physics calculation and the game totally misses the collision.  For example (my understanding anyway) at T= -0.1s, the kill vehicle is 100m above the target, closing at 1103m/s.  At T=0.0s, the kill vehicle is 4m below the target, pulling away at 1103m/s.  You know and I know they had to pass through each other to get there, but the game never "saw" them hit, it just jumped their positions from 100m above to 4m below.

In reality, a fragmentation warhead would increase the chance of a hit (but reduce penetration if it was a hard target), but in game I doubt it would register the fragments any more than the single kill vehicle.  Also, "just before impact" would be at least a second even if you were really fast, when the target was over a kilometer away - the force of the decoupling could possibly be enough to alter your course enough to miss entirely.  Larger (MUCH larger) craft (the interceptor and/or the target) would increase the chances of the game registering the collision, but a bunch of small pieces would probably just fly past like the single piece did. 

You might be able to play with the physics delta time setting to give the game enough time to recognize the impact - as I understand it the further right you slide the setting, the more real time seconds your computer is allowed to take to calculate physics for each second of game time.  I may have to try that in the future unless someone on here has played with it before and can confirm or deny that idea.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Cavscout74

[Kchinger]

11 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

Thanks & grats on your 1000th post.

 

Honestly, I was happy when it got to double digits closest approach.  Almost half of its course corrections actually increased the closest approach once I was getting to the last 60 seconds.  I had to set the desired distance to something like 0.0001 meters to get it to adjust close enough to consider it a hit

The problem is each craft is traveling so fast and are relatively small so they go through each other within one physics calculation and the game totally misses the collision.  For example (my understanding anyway) at T= -0.1s, the kill vehicle is 100m above the target, closing at 1103m/s.  At T=0.0s, the kill vehicle is 4m below the target, pulling away at 1103m/s.  You know and I know had to pass through each other to get there, but the game never "saw" them hit, it just jumped their positions from 100m above to 4m below.

In reality, a fragmentation warhead would increase the chance of a hit (but reduce penetration if it was a hard target), but in game I doubt it would register the fragments any more than the single kill vehicle.  Also, "just before impact" would be at least a second even if you were really fast, when the target was over a kilometer away - the force of the decoupling could possibly be enough to alter your course enough to miss entirely.  Larger (MUCH larger) craft (the interceptor and/or the target) would increase the chances of the game registering the collision, but a bunch of small pieces would probably just fly past like the single piece did. 

You might be able to play with the physics delta time setting to give the game enough time to recognize the hit - as I understand it the further right you slide the setting, the more real time seconds your computer is allowed to take to calculate physics for each second of game time.  I may have to try that in the future unless someone on here has played with it before and can confirm or deny that idea.

In a roundabout kind of way you've sort of demonstrated why ICBM interception and kill is such an incredibly difficult problem. 

[Cavscout74]

11 minutes ago, Kchinger said:

In a roundabout kind of way you've sort of demonstrated why ICBM interception and kill is such an incredibly difficult problem. 

Yeah, pretty much the same problem, except the closure rate is even higher in the real world.

After my excitement yesterday, I had a little calmer day today.  I finally got a contract to scan a pancake dome on Eve, so my rover that has been sitting in front of one for months finally got to be of use.  I already had contracts to scan a volcanic rock & basalt formation, but didn't want to lose the pancake dome & have to find another one later, so it's just been parked waiting for the contract to pop up.

Next up was a volcanic rock

Having no luck at night and with the rover's batteries running down, it was time to find a nice spot to wait for sunrise

Finally, some basalt hidden next to a generic rock

In the process of searching for some basalt, I found a nice reasonably flat plateau at 3500m elevation with an 11% ore concentration.  I may have to try to drop a fuel station here, and later a manned lander.  After finding the basalt formation, I had the rover drive back to the plateau to act as an aiming point.

I also got my Laythe Ocean Venture (the drone submarine I was testing a few days ago) launched just in time for the next transfer window

Nestled safely inside the payload fairing.  I widened the fairing - which stays on for the trip to Laythe - to increase drag during atmospheric entry over Laythe, to help keep the actual heat shield pointing forward and provide more clearance for the violent deployment of the fairing in the atmosphere.  It worked on a suborbital test around Kerbin, hopefully it will at Laythe as well.

 

[Okhin]

After trying (unsuccessfully) a space plane cargo which could deliver enough fuel to my soon to be minmus station to finally get the contract (15 kerbals capacity, 6000 l of liquid fuel, a lab, in stable orbit of minmus with three pilots in it),  I switched back to a more pragmatic way of delivering fuel, and strapped four thoroughbread around four jumbo 64 tanks and one main sail, which gave me one full tank in LKO. Not very efficient, but at least it's there. And after moving hat massive load with RCS (and it moves slowly and with a lot of inertia), I managed to finally dock it, transfer the fuel to the base and put the base around minmus (with 6092 liter of liquid fuel left, I had to use RCS to finish circulazing).

But now it's there. And I can finally get science out of Minmus \o/