What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Guest]

Well... there is always tomorrow...

 

[Zamolxes77]

I finally added to KerbalX the craft file for tier 3 SSTO, called Junky.

https://kerbalx.com/Zamolxes77/Junky

Please let me know what you think about it and if it can be further tweaked.

[iamn00b]

On 11/17/2020 at 4:15 PM, vv3k70r said:

Congratulations!

thx man!

[vv3k70r]

4 hours ago, Zamolxes77 said:

I finally added to KerbalX the craft file for tier 3 SSTO, called Junky.

Looks exactly to deserve the name. But it should do well.

[N_Danger]

I sent a rover to Duna.

Sky crane time.

And let us make sure it flies away after dropping the rover.

Now we drive around looking at stuff.

And scan some blueberries.

I also moved my Edna and Dak probe to Dres.

 

[vv3k70r]

I'm about to invade Minmus:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2296578290

[Corona688]

15 hours ago, Zamolxes77 said:

I finally added to KerbalX the craft file for tier 3 SSTO, called Junky.

https://kerbalx.com/Zamolxes77/Junky

Please let me know what you think about it and if it can be further tweaked.

I expected this to be one of those barely-made-it borderline SSTO's with twenty-line instructions, but no!  Once I got it off the runway, I made it to orbit first try with 400m/s to spare.

I suspect the landing gear can be improved.  Taking off completely flat like that means you generally need to fall off the end of the runway.

[Guest]

Today I kinda feel proud. I got someone I have known for over 14 years who bought KSP in a sale. It was fun to watch him build and launch his first rocket. I love how I can help him because when I first launched my first few rockets I had no one to mentor me since I had no friends that played ksp. But because of this we have another thing in common, I told him to get tons of practice, and I am glad we have another kerbonaut

 

[Corona688]

18 hours ago, Zamolxes77 said:

I finally added to KerbalX the craft file for tier 3 SSTO, called Junky.

https://kerbalx.com/Zamolxes77/Junky

Please let me know what you think about it and if it can be further tweaked.

I see now there are instructions...  I actually didn't follow the instructions, just pitched up and made it to space.  I did turn off the swivel engines manually once appropriate, but maybe the craft doesn't need as much babying as all that.

[OnlyLightMatters]

On 11/12/2020 at 8:53 AM, KeaKaka said:

How did you make the blueprint?

Since I've been asked so many times how to blueprint KSP crafts, I made my own tutorial based on KVV and GIMP

 

[IncompetentSpacer]

Daily Kerbal - I thought I pitch in among the regulars here. This is one hour planned gaming that turned into two days mission.

What I wanted to do:

-  revisit Jool system (I have been everywhere , including Dres but I havent revisited Jool since early days).

- Also wanted to take an airplane on Laythe for spin.

- I did simplest possible design with enough MS to get me theres, old airplane design strapped to the side and secondary vehicle for coms and as counterbalance strapped to the other side. I did not want to spend two days designing special custom Matt Lowne/Scott Manley/Shadow-wahtever-his-youtube-nick-is super duper design.

 

What I ended up doing (I do have dangit mod but it did not contribute to the chaos at all):

Kraken attacked midway to the Jool and moved my Rover from the top of the rocket into one of the midsections. It exploded and the sound ( I was in kitchen getting coffee, getting sound via headphones) made spill the coffee in surprise and shortened my life by couple of years.

Since midsection (science + com equipment) was behaving strangely I undocked the bugged part from the main section and thought about having command+ISRU section docking to the mainsection.

Then the docking port stopped working....

So I had to dock command section to the secondary vehicle and transfer 30 tons of fuel from it, shot down two engines to try to minimize effects on unbalanced weight (I have now 51 tons on port vs 43 tons on starboard side of the rocket).

https://imgur.com/a/tqHnQQthttps://imgur.com/a/tqHnQQt

Maybe all of this totally destroyed my initial transfer window and Inow  have spent too much fuel to get in a stable orbit around Jool (I suspect it is a bug too - I was supposed to intercept with Tylo for some gravity breaking but ended up way off) So right now I am in orbit around Bop moon with 400 ms to spare for command section to land and refuel and maybe save the mission.

Did I say that I have installed Dang-It mod because I felt my KSP experience is getting stale?

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Update - after several trips down to Bop, I refueled communication vehicle and just enough fuel for Main Engine section to bring us 70 K above Laythe. Time to finally do what I wanted to do - test my airplane in atmosphere of Laythe (I have ditched the ISRU section and will travel back to Kerbin with command pod docked to communication vehicle - 5600 DV should be enough for return trip) :

Unfortunately - I discovered just when I was landing that previously mentioned explosion have also removed my front landing gear!??? (I double checked in VAB - it is there. But if you see on pictures above it is missing, so it is not engineering problem!)

So lost one engine, one airbrake and frontal nose cone... Parachutes saved me Maybe I can avoid rescue mission? Time will show.

Edited November 24, 2020 by IncompetentSpacer

[Popestar]

Today I created a "car" in my caveman challenge career save, and then drove it all over the KSC.  Earned enough science points to unlock Miniaturization, and I have 76.5 points left.  Going to switch fuel tanks from the 100 to the 400 and then see about driving that thing north to other biomes.  I'm curious as to how many science points I can earn before I have to go into space again.

[N_Danger]

To follow up my Duna rover Mission, I sent a rover to Eve.

Spoiler

I got a lot of use out of the heat shield.

Chute inflation..

..back shell separation..

..and wheel deployment are successful.

At 750 meters AGL.

We have arrived. I'm using, an old out of fuel probe, as a makeshift relay sat that is only giving me 20 minutes or so of probe control at a time. Time  to launch a relay satellite to Eve.

 

 

[Corona688]

Proved to my satisfaction that rotorcraft in KSP experience gyroscopic forces:

This mun-gyroscope has been precessing for 10 minutes straight with no power to the propellers and no reaction wheel input.  If you try to push it over, it resists and the rotors slow down.

[antipro]

Explore Eve
Sent 2 unmanned probes to Eve ground and ocean with 1 launch.


Cinematics

Dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ldzac89xnmxl85w/Explore Eve - RV 315 Summer.mkv?dl=0

Youtube: (it could be blocked in some countries due to music)

Before and After Mission

Mission Info


Eve Probes Launcher Blueprints


Splasher


Lander

Edited November 25, 2020 by antipro

[Zamolxes77]

On 11/24/2020 at 8:41 AM, Corona688 said:

I see now there are instructions...  I actually didn't follow the instructions, just pitched up and made it to space.  I did turn off the swivel engines manually once appropriate, but maybe the craft doesn't need as much babying as all that.

Nope. I tend to build my crafts as idiot proof as possible, as easy to fly as possible, with as little clipping of parts as possible.

I'm curious how you will go about optimizing the wheels. I have a smaller plane SSTO into works, same tier, same parts, but aprox. half the size and cost. Unfortunately, that means also half the dV in orbit. Is closer to classic plane SSTO, having lots of air breathing engines to get it past the thicker part of the athmosphere:

If flown correctly, you should have about 300m/s dV left in orbit, which is enough for 2 careful rescues and a deorbit:

Cost and weight:

Craft file: soon.

[Corona688]

1 hour ago, Zamolxes77 said:

Nope. I tend to build my crafts as idiot proof as possible, as easy to fly as possible, with as little clipping of parts as possible.

You don't seem to have those feelings for landing gear -- of which I approve.  My approach to clipping is that anything you could alter with an angle-grinder without immediately destroying it is fair game.  Lopping off a few inches - or feet - of wing?  No foul.  Modular girder segment?  That's what they're THERE for!  But messing with engines?  Real bad juju.

Ultimately though, I couldn't fix the landing gear.  I'd have to stuff a modular girder segment there to pitch the nose higher on the runway, which would be super ugly and cause lots of drag.  I pitched up the wings angle of attack one ponk instead, and moved their COL forward a bunch for a much smoother takeoff experience.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Corona688

[Zamolxes77]

5 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

I pitched up the wings angle of attack one ponk instead, and moved their COL forward a bunch for a much smoother takeoff experience.

Careful with that. I prefer a worse take off experience than a harrowing landing. My aim was a smooth, balanced and easy aero breaking, so you can pick your landing location extremely easy :).

[Corona688]

14 minutes ago, Zamolxes77 said:

Careful with that. I prefer a worse take off experience than a harrowing landing. My aim was a smooth, balanced and easy aero breaking, so you can pick your landing location extremely easy :).

It wasn't really optional -- I was leaving engines on the runway 3 out of 4 takeoffs.  Now it lifts off smoothly at 130m/s.

I have to hope there's a way to do both.  Maybe something can be done with 'deploy' in an action group.  Just plain making the wings larger would help with liftoff, too.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Corona688

[Zamolxes77]

While tinkering with Junky, trying it to put it on a diet and shed some engines, as an accident, I fell upon a solution I previously discarded as being ridiculous !

Here it is, Minerva, a truly caveman SSTO, using 12 Juno engines and a reliant to take a pilot and 2 passengers in LKO !

Craft file on KerbalX : https://kerbalx.com/Zamolxes77/T3-SSTO-Minerva

Is amazing but is faster, lighter and cheaper than Junky, with a slight hit in deltaV in orbit, but more than enough to perform 2 rescues. An additional science bay can be added with Goo canister, thermometer and barometer. Caveman says <ooooraaaah>  "Me crush space with club !"

 

[vv3k70r]

Another absurdal assigment complete.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Googled a load of synonyms for ‘endurance’ to name my fleet of Endurance spacecraft in the Beyond Home Space Race, only to discover that one single Endurance can carry enough components to build up to six gab plus science module ‘bases’ and launching that instead. Then the whole thing nearly overheated while making a ~250km/s burn, then I found out the fuel priority was wrong and that will take a lot of fixing with the fuel transfer bug and the 1.5FPS I’m currently getting out of it.

On the plus side, no further launches should be required to finish off all the milestones and by extension the race itself.

[Fraktal]

Baby's first (more like fourth if we count the failed attempts I savescummed away...) Duna landing~

And no, Jeb's salute was not scripted. He happened to do an idle animation just as I took the screenshot.

Above Ike on the horizon is Eve, as well as a second, fainter twinkle higher up which is the mission's orbiter spacecraft. Now I only gotta figure out how to get back to it from the ground...

[Popestar]

Today I spent time in ny Caveman Challenge career squeezing out the last few science points I need to start working on a space station.  I have 2 nodes in Tier 5 unlocked (Miniaturization; Electrics), which indeed to build said orbiting edifice.  Now, from here, I can get the core of the station up into orbit, and then start working on getting command pods and fuel tanks up there.

[panzer1b]

Well i massively fixed my framerate issues by once and for all killing hyper-threading.  Its not like i genuinely need 12 bloody cores for anything, and for whatever reason KSP seems to allocate resources to virtual cores horrendously badly...

This launch went extremely smoothly for what is 700 parts...

My newest BCorp styled warship, another in the "Warhammer" series (mark 4 to be precise), designed to replace the rather pointless previous models that didnt really do any role well.  Hangar bays on a battlecruiser just arent worth bringing, and i took the saved parts to up the armor and add more guns.  This thing is no AKS Dimension class cruiser, but its pretty much the best thing i made for BCorp thusfar while still limiting myself to technology theyd have in lore.  The ship is my own design since i initially tried to make it a replica, but eventually made too many compromises for viability and gave up halfway.  Still, the front should be dead giveaway what this was initially going to be replica wise, the backside less so (and i even ended up using completely unrelated Venator turrets from another replica i made back when on it cause i really liked the look of them and well i already had them built as a subassembly).

And to top it off, made a new BCorp styled armored freighter thing to run alongside as the Warhammer mk4 is so bloody fuel hungry it needs its own dedicated tanker to do anything past LKO (its not so much that its dV is bad (over 1500), but it just eats so much fuel cause its over 50 tons of pure structure/armor not counting anything like pods/engines/weapons/fueltanks.

Ohh, and to test the hyperthreading performance boost, i loaded up 4 ships (2 not shown as they are behind teh target), the Warhammer, a AKS Nebula, the fuel tanker thing, and a Drek 12P (which in total is around 2000 parts).  Game does slow, but the mouse lag/stuttering is completely gone now which makes gameplay actually feel alot smoother despote being slow due to physics calcs bogging down.  All in all, im very happy woith what i did today, made some neat ships, and managed to fix the number one pet peve i have with KSP, excessive lag issues (and im not talking about physics speed, the stupid mouse lagfest is unmanageably rage inducing with so many ships loaded and hyper-threading enabled)...

Edited November 26, 2020 by panzer1b