What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Tim_AZ]

Hopefully this ok to post here since I made the quad and the video today.  This is a quick video of the quadrotor I sank earlier (sinking not included).  I'll get it posted over on KerbalX in the morning.

https://kerbalx.com/Tim_AZ/Personal-Quad

Edited December 19, 2019 by Tim_AZ
Added KerbalX link

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, Tim_AZ said:

Hopefully this ok to post here since I made the quad and the video today.  This is a quick video of the quadrotor I sank earlier (sinking not included).  I'll get it posted over on KerbalX in the morning.

Spoiler

 

You could install the mod EasyBoard:

Then you fly over a second Kerbal and with the right settings, the 2nd Kerbal will grab onto the ladder on the bottom of the Quadrotor.

[KerikBalm]

4 hours ago, Tim_AZ said:

Hopefully this ok to post here since I made the quad and the video today.  This is a quick video of the quadrotor I sank earlier (sinking not included).  I'll get it posted over on KerbalX in the morning.

Was pitch/roll/yaw controlled all by reaction wheels, or did you somehow set up the KAL controller to achieve aeordynamic control by varying rotor torque/blade angle? So far I haven't really figured out how to set up the KAL to do that, and rely on reaction wheels +axis groups for my quad tilt rotors. I would love to upgrade the control authority of this thing when in hover mode:

Spoiler

 

 

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Yesterday saw the continuation of my ongoing interplanetary tourist expedition. As planned, my afternoon started with engineer Mitvin Kerman recently arrived at the Vermilion Block 380 outpost on Vall aboard a Spamcan 7c lander; three attempts had been made to refuel the lander earlier that morning, with each attempt ending with the lander tipped on its side as soon as it was cut loose from the base after refueling. This fourth time, I simply had Mitvin enter the base without bothering to refuel the lander. This fulfilled the ongoing outpost expansion contract; the game didn't offer me a replacement contract for it, which I was fine with. The Spamcan then took off, obtaining a 68.4 x 66.1 kilometer, 0.4° inclined orbit. Unfortunately, I had overestimated how much fuel it had remaining; it is out of gas at this point, but at least it's in a stable orbit. A Da Luv Boat 7 emergency rescue tanker was ordered up at the Non Est Hic Yards in Vall orbit for purposes of refueling the lander; yard engineer Genery Kerman will have the craft completed in 24.5 hours.

I did mention yesterday that I had conducted a burn to get the probe I've been trying to get over a specific spot in stationary orbit at Dres and that the burn had been reverted as a result of the fueling issues at 380. A repeat of that burn was on the agenda next. Some changes to the specific number of milliseconds occurred but otherwise it's pretty much the same...

Cleared for new business at last, LSV House Atreides broke orbit over Vall and headed to its next destination, which was Pol. The warp ship bled off as much speed as it could over Jool before proceeding to the pollen moon, arriving at 149 m/s, too fast to enter orbit directly (not that I'd want to try that over such a small body). At periapsis, the ship lit up its conventional drives and conducted a 1/3 thrust burn, eventually stabilizing into a 449.6 by 180.2 kilometer, 23.51° orbit.

Now, which one of you guys wanted to pay to see this? You better look, cuz we're getting out of this dump as soon as I've confirmed the transfer of credits from your accounts...

Itineraries checked off, Atreides broke orbit over Pol and began the warp to Eve, the next stop along her itinerary. Atreides arrives at a speed of 7,595 m/s and after performing 7 warp-back maneuvers to finish bleeding of speed, she settled into a 640.8 by 483.9 kilometer, 1.34° inclined orbit. Once in orbit, Eunice Howell departed from space station Eveport and began a burn to take her to intercept with Atreides. Owing to good timing, Howell was able to set up a rendezvous at the intercept point; flight time to rendezvous was fifteen minutes.

Howell arrived at Atreides this morning, docking safely. Howell took on fuel supplies from Atreides while tourists Joemon and Obsen Kerman boarded, after which the craft made her way back to Eveport; total flight time from departure from Atreides to arrival and docking at Eveport was one hour on the nose. Noted one detail upon arrival - it appeared that I had never docked up a Cigar 7 Eve Descent Module to the Zima 7 passenger module docked at the station; Joemon's scheduled journey to and from the surface would have a further delay...

Sorry Joemon, looks like we're close but......no Cigar. (Damn, that's two days in a row with the bad puns...).

Upon docking, Joemon did go ahead and transfer to the Zima 7 in preparations for departure, while Eunice Howell departed the station with Obsen still aboard after taking on fuel supplies from the station. Howell burned for Gilly shortly after departure; she'll arrive at an encounter there in 25 hours and 16 minutes. I am concerned that Howell will not have sufficient fuel to enter Gilly orbit - the craft has all of five seconds' fuel remaining...

Ended my morning so far by ordering up the Cigar at the Caue Serpente Yards; it'll be ready in a little over three hours. The plan for today are to get the Cigar built and have Joemon head to the surface. His ride back up is already ready to go at the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on the surface, so it'll just be a standard drop. Meanwhile, I'll be prepping up a rescue ship at Gilly in case it's needed, and Atreides is clear to head on to other points in its itinerary. Dres is still on the schedule but after that the only other place the tourists are heading is Mun. I don't know if I want to head to Mun with other tourists still out; there's no real reason why I couldn't go there, though. The 54-day ongoing colonization mission at the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus also finished up while Howell was making her burn for Gilly, so I'll need to head out that way and clean that up. Hopefully I'll get a decent replacement contract. Other than that, I haven't got anything going on that I haven't already reported about ad naseum this week. Going to be having another extended weekend due to busy Saturdays; probably not going to post again until Monday. 

[Tim_AZ]

6 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Was pitch/roll/yaw controlled all by reaction wheels, or did you somehow set up the KAL controller to achieve aeordynamic control by varying rotor torque/blade angle? So far I haven't really figured out how to set up the KAL to do that, and rely on reaction wheels +axis groups for my quad tilt rotors. I would love to upgrade the control authority of this thing when in hover mode:

  Hide contents

 

 

It is all reaction wheel so far.  I've seen some helicopters with full swash plate setups but that's not practical in small craft. There may be some way to vary RPM at each corner to achieve some control but I haven't dug into it deep enough to find out yet.

[Delay]

Patched this one a few days ago, but here is the "Dachshund" - an engine that comes with VSR.

I tried to base things on page 28 of this.

[Zeiss Ikon]

Well, not today, but last night and the night before (because of limited play time).

(1.8.1, Making History, Breaking Ground, stock)

I took my first couple rescue contracts (actually had one offered before Jeb's Mun flyby, but without mission planning there was no chance of getting a rendezvous).  Two stranded Kerbals in orbit.  Should have gone to Tracking before I clicked; Gradard was in LEO, in an Onion with no engines (and apparently unaware of the "get out and push" method of deorbiting); Val easily rendezvoused, parked her craft a mere 10 m from Gradard's, and Gradard made a trivial EVA.  Turns out the other rescuee was in an orbit much like the one Jeb would have had if he'd tried to make his return burn while still in the Mun's SOI without nodes -- that is, pretty inclined, and a bit beyond the Mun's orbit.  Val's rescue craft lacked the dV to even make an attempt that far out, so Matski will have to wait another day while the guys in the VAB build something with a bit more oomph.

Val, unlike Jeb, had the sense not to even try, and carefully deorbited even with 600+ m/s still in her service stage (she'd have needed close to 1000 to have any chance of getting Matski).

I was a little concerned whether the Pea/Mk.1 pod stack would be stable in the correct direction, and decelerate enough, high enough, for parachutes to be effective, but with a full size heat shield, it was rock solid through reentry.

And despite having no control at all after entering atmosphere (the Mk. 1 can be flown, just a little, but not the Pea) the returning pair landed less than 35 km from the Space Center.

Now someone has to go get Matski.  Hopefully without getting them both stranded out there.

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

I landed an outpost on the surface of Laythe and named it after one of my fallen kerbalnauts, Eriler Kerman.

 

• Eriler Outpost
  • 10* 13' 44" S
  • 166* 57' 37" E

 

EDIT: Here's the craft file on KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Mars-Bound_Hokie/Laythe-Outpost-NO-MODS

Edited December 20, 2019 by Mars-Bound Hokie
Adding link to (unmodded) craft file

[Ratwerke_Actual]

Roasted some chestnuts on an open fire...

Because Jeb forgot the marshmallows.

[Hotel26]

Proof of concept.  My first-ever, operational submarine base: [click + arrows]

  

It's a vertical launch to orbit followed by controlled de-orbit into the target area with a Cruise module (Wheesleys and wings) then flying the payload to the precise drop location.

Capacity: 21 Kerbals.

Edited December 20, 2019 by Hotel26

[Retro Starship]

(1.8.1, Making History, Breaking Ground, Kerbalism and many mods)

Yesterday I got a contract to have Kathely bring Johnbree Kerman over the south pole for the holiday festivities. I know what your thinking, its the north pole here for this holiday. Not so in Kerbal land.

In the land of Kerban they are looking to have a very Merry Kristmas this week. Years ago a kerbal named Kris Klaus Kerman (who was an extraordinary rocket scientist and also known as Santa Klaus) was a very giving person. With his kindness to others and his love of rocketry, he made a secret rocket that could go so fast, he could deliver his gifts to all the children in Kerban in one night. Those gifts were small models of rockets. (what else?)

We have no Idea about the rocket. It is just faster than even warp time with your "." key. He and his wife, Mrs. K and a few people from JPL, lived at the bottom of the south pole and wanted to see people, that liked him, fly over as a celebration of this day of giving. They all set up telescopes to watch this as well. Some say, Kris would make enough models for everyone that appreciated him by flying over the sky. They called this the kerbal  list.

Here is the mission of that flight.

Just over the South pole.. somewhere up there is Santa K! 

Home sweet home.

Well I know one of those gifts is for the ride Kathely Kerman gave him. Where did they come from though?? I know....

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by Saturn5tony
(image up above borrowed from kaspervid in this forum)

[Arco123]

So, I finally finshed The Great Kerbal War Trailer. Here's the link on youtube:

 

Anyways, go read the topic if you want updates and more info on it:

I hope you guys like it....

[Cavscout74]

I haven't played enough to post another update to my career, but I do have a shot from a failed attempt to gather more seismic sensor science on Minmus by firing a series of unguided rockets at the surface (from ~2km altitude) before crashing the carrier into the surface

While performing a rocket attack on Minmus was fun, it was pointless - only the carrier had enough mass to trigger the seismic sensors.

[Tim_AZ]

Today I made a tutorial for building quadrotors.  I have a whole new appreciation for how much work goes into these kind of videos.

 

[Hotel26]

Final in my short series on submarines: this is Stingray and it features the Tardis Buoyancy Control System.

In the first shot, you'll notice that Stingray features 3 internal bladders: fore, aft and bleed.  These are ore tanks converted for sea-water using the Tardis effect (which is what I call a "stock mod"), meaning they can be quickly flooded anywhere at sea,.

Stingray flies with zero ballast and then chutes down onto the ocean surface in the target area.  Chutes are repacked on the surface although they do not appear to be needed for the descent.

With a little forward motion (a few m/s), the ballast tanks are all flooded producing negative buoyancy but the forward motion providing positive attitude control permitting the machine to enter a shallow dive under power.

Next, the bleed tank is evacuated (contents jettisoned).  When I get all the adjustments made, the objective will be then slightly negative buoyancy but sufficiently negative  to permit the machine to sit on the ocean bottom on all three wheels and brakes holding a stationary position.

In addition, the bleed tank size is (or will be) sufficient to then refill from the fore and aft bladders, producing a potential differential in the balance, fore and aft, allowing dive and surface inclination tuning by pumping water fore or aft.

Lastly, it is quite fun to adopt the Up-angle, hit turbo boost and SAS Radial Out and then BLOW ALL TANKS to accelerate madly toward the surface...

  

"ALL HANDS!  Now pray for a surface above, clear of recreational vehicles: no jet skis, yacht regattas, idle fishermen, tramp steamers, resting whales, etc..."

Stingray cruises underwater at 15 m/s (no boost) and exhibits pleasantly docile handling.
 

UPDATE: now experimenting with a 2-tank system in which the buoyancy tank is positioned at the CoM and the much smaller trim tank is well aft, applying leverage (the same way the empennage does).  Flooding all tanks initiates sink into a nose-low dive.  Evacuating the trim tank then brings buoyancy to just slightly negative but with trim full-forward.  Then commence pumping into the trim tank until attitudinal neutrality is found.  Don't see right now how it could get any simpler.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Hotel26

[NotARobot]

In Modded 1.7.3 I created my first mining station, I decided to put it on Minmus.

I also wanted to try out KAS so I intended to use the JS-1 connectors.

I set up the refinery, mining rover, and surface-to-orbit fuel transporter on Minmus near my research station.

Only to realize I had forgotten to bring pipes, I will probably send a lander with pipes on it.

It may or may not be able to work.

[Okhin]

So, I got this contract to build a space hotel. For 50 kerbals.

So, that's the full design in the VAB.

All the rooms modules (the Y assembled Htchiker) rotates, and none collides with each other (there's a lot of maneuvering leeway, like 20cm). There's for hydroponic farm, providing enough snacks for 40 kerbals per day. I may add anther one at the end of it, under the docking structures. There's 3 big space atrium, the one on top being where tourists dock and enter, the other two are juse regular dining room. There's a lot of cupola and observation pods, after all, people pays lots of kerbucks to get there, they might as well be able to enjoy a nice view of Kerbin and space.

I ran the model through simulation (cheating to orbit it is), to check if and how the design was functional, and it seems it is :

The part count is around 450, and the total weight is 100T. Since I'm not at the science tier 4 yet, that means I'll need to do a hell lot of launches to assembles it. I have some Kerbucks left, but I'll probably do some other contracts first to get a bit more science and funds (and maybe, just enough science to unlock the Gigantor solar array, even if I do like the look of those hydroponics farms covered in solar array).

There's some small details to check before considering the design done (I might need a bit more solar panel with all the entertainment centers running), and I also need to design a vehicule with would help for assembly. At least I got Klaws now, it would make things easier for that.

So yes, that's a big launch campaign to plan

[Curveball Anders]

At last, after many trails and failures.
A quadcopter that can be landed and fly on Duna.

In reference to Dragonfly (I want to point out that the atmosphere on Titan is a bit denser than bloody Duna) ...

[Tim_AZ]

32 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

At last, after many trails and failures.
A quadcopter that can be landed and fly on Duna.

In reference to Dragonfly (I want to point out that the atmosphere on Titan is a bit denser than bloody Duna) ...

That's great.  I couldn't seem to get a design with ducted fans working on Duna and ended up going with standard propellers.  How much does it weigh and how high can it climb?

[NHunter]

Today I finished mapping Fury

Also the "Lander Probe Package" arrived, so once I have a big enough window of time, I'm finishing the Strategia objective of landing a probe in 3 of Fury's biomes.

Let's hope that these small probes can actually survive Fury reentry...

[Arco123]

7 minutes ago, NHunter said:

Today I finished mapping Fury

Also the "Lander Probe Package" arrived, so once I have a big enough window of time, I'm finishing the Strategia objective of landing a probe in 3 of Fury's biomes.

Let's hope that these small probes can actually survive Fury reentry...

What mods?

[NHunter]

9 minutes ago, Arco123 said:

What mods?

Be a bit more specific? I have like 80 mods active on that install

[Arco123]

Part/outer planet mods. Maybe even your visual mod.

[NHunter]

I'm currently exploring the Beyond Home planets. As for parts, what you see is mostly ReStock + DMagic Science with random NearFuture suite and ThorTech (engines) thrown into the mix. (and, of course, TweakScale)

[Arco123]

Huh, cool.