What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Kapitalizing Every Word]

3 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

On one hand, I agree, but on the other hand, does it really need it? I started without them due to dead GPU and adding them in half way through would just look too out of place, plus I doubt there'd be much difference on Duna with something like AVP or Spectra added.

Yeah I know that adding visual mods now would feel out of place and it would break the theme
keep up the great work!

[qromodynmc]

Still on my journey to make racing car in ksp;

 

unlike a proper racing car, this thing is so heavy so i put three junos on it. does over 400kph with stock wheels, modded wheels die sooner.

Edited October 24, 2021 by qromodynmc

[Stewcumber]

Jeb paid respects to his fallen comrades by doing a sweet doughnut around the Memorial at the KSC in the Bouncy Car.

100mb dropbox video version

 

(What I actually did was work out how to stop my wheels flexing around - just use the bigger hinges - and with the help of forum user ColdJ worked out how to make smoother wheels, as well as make the steering return to centre after pressing left or right)

[The Primordial Wanderer]

I am about to test Raptor9's scientific planes.

[Hotel26]

Found a possible use for asteroids finally...

 

Real estate development:
 

Spoiler

First, I caught GML-902.

Quite easy then to cheaply effect a capture at the Mun.

Next, at the right moment, caused a gentle ejection back into the Kerbin SOI so as to have the minimum inclination.  (In this case 4-5 degrees.)

Then as follows:

1. 39.4 m/s dV to bring the inclination down to 0.4 degrees
2. 209.4 ms dV to lower the Kerbin altitide to 2,868 km
3. 232.7 m/s dV to circularize in geosynchronous orbit

Presto!  "Getaway real estate with a billionaire view..."  (My first advance sale is to a fellow identifying only as "Dr Evil"...  Price was One Hundred Billion Kerbucks.  )

(Also providing cheap fuel thereafter to installations in GKO.)

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Hotel26

[boolybooly]

My space ship fell over.

I was trying a rover repair mission.

I had set up a lander with longer legs on one side than the other because the target rover was on a slope and it had to be parked nearby to transfer parts to the rover with an engineer.

I was having  trouble because of shifting frames of reference in engineering mode, even when the kerbal engineer was on a ladder on a rover parked on the Mun surface there was a kind of creep possibly due to the rotation of the Mun which kept misaligning parts. Also velocity was added to the craft every time a part was added. I bodged it and it worked well enough but dont get me started on rover wheels. 

I finally completed the objectives, brought the rover to a new location and back to the lander and then thought about salvage.

As I sat there in inventory mode something about that  broke the lander leg physics and to my horror it slowly toppled over stranding Val, Bill and Bob on the Mun.

The kicker is, this is a "no second chances" career game. So no save and reload, I have to engineer my way out of this situation with a few spare lander legs etc, could be tricky but at least the Kerbals are safe!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2635971208

Edited October 24, 2021 by boolybooly

[qromodynmc]

one more iteration.

[jimmymcgoochie]

@boolybooly use the landing legs to “bounce” the top of the rocket towards vertical, then gun the engines and hope you get it pointed up in time to not crash into the ground. Take the legs off and stick them right at the top of the crew cabin so that they’ll deploy down into the ground; set SAS to surface radial out (aka UP), deploy legs then give it full throttle as soon as it bounces the nose up. It’s a risky strategy so worth a few dry runs without the engine first to see how high you can get the nose to go.

Alternatively, you could try using the legs one or two at a time to gradually ratchet the craft upwards towards vertical- attach at the end of the crew cabin, deploy, add  ore legs further along, deploy those and repeat until you have a much higher nose-up attitude, then try the bounce and go technique above. You also have that rover to brace the rocket against…

I really hope you’re not planning to re-enter that thing though, it looks like a deathtrap- materials bays are very easily destroyed by re-entry heating and if that happens your crew cabin will fly off and probably explode too.

Edited October 24, 2021 by jimmymcgoochie

[RealKerbal3x]

Nuclear Tug SN2 returned from high Kerbin orbit (it delivered a mining module to a class E asteroid I'm trying to wrangle down to LKO), conducting an aerobraking test in the process.

These tugs are heavily inspired by the design from Brotoro's Long Term Laythe. They're great for pushing big payloads around.

I also spotted a solar eclipse while getting the tug docked back to my space station. These aren't exactly rare given that Kerbin and the Mun both have zero-inclination orbits, but it's nice to see nonetheless.

[Admiral Fluffy]

\

Bob realizes with horror that he won't be able to finsh his mashed potatos he left on his table.

Taking place within this mission report!

(Yes this is a shameless plug)

[boolybooly]

@jimmymcgoochie thanks for the suggestions and valid concerns  

I used the ratchet method, had four micro legs and two medium legs to use as jacks on the rover and found I could use the displacement tool in engineer mode to move them out further and further in pairs, retracting and deploying, as long as the point of contact with the Mun was the other side of the center of mass from the engine landing gears it was stable-ish on four points, so moved all fuel into the bottom tank, maxed springs and ended up I was able to right it using the extra gyro tacked on the side for a bit of welly on the last bit.

You can see in the screeny from after righting the lander and prepping it for orbit, this process somehow mangled the weight distribution in the lander and it showed up in burns even after I removed the spare gyro but not so bad it could not fly.

Dont ask why I brought a magnetometer to the Mun surface, basically I forgot it had it on there!

Also for return the Kerbals had a Mun insertion stage in orbit which doubles as a fuel depot and junkyard and had the chutes tucked away in an inventory cargo section to reduce the Mun lander weight. After rendezvous the lander was re-engineered to add those and remove the science  pod for possible recycling, which seemed like a good idea as you are right it is a weak link for thermals.

Though if you keep it in the thermal shadow of the tanks and engine or ablative shield (which it does have below the Mk1 pod for emergency use btw), by reentering retrograde you can in fact keep everything behind the engine or shield cool e.g. chutes, though you do have to watch the engine thermals on a direct reentry from the Mun return orbit as it is a pretty high speed and anything from outside Kerbin SOI would blow up unless you decelerate first and or keep it above 50km but from the Mun you can go to about 37km and if it overheats enough to fill the bar a few m/s of retro thrust will take the edge off it. If that fails you can just jettison the fuel tanks and engine and go with the ablator which has higher drag and a better thermal shadow for its size and does the job.

So the reengineered lander returned with engine intact and besides repairing the rover they collected over 1000 science as well as completing munstone collection and flag  planting missions and testing the small rover wheel on the Mun. 

 

 

[18Watt]

Completed a surface circumnavigation of every CB in stock KSP for the Elcano challenge.  The original challenge was created in March 2015.  Six years later, I'm the third player to complete the challenge on every CB.  It's a tough challenge.

 

[king of nowhere]

In the previous week I went from Ike to Moho using six gravity assists - plus 3 major manuevers in the end. It took 25 years, but I only spent 2500 m/s. It's the first time I manage to get to Moho reasonably cheap, and it's the first time I tried the recursive gravity assist strategy. I learned a lot of things.

I think I could have saved an additional 500-700 m/s had I been more practiced with it; I went to Eve with insufficient speed to reach all the way down to Moho periapsis

Edited October 25, 2021 by king of nowhere

[pmborg]

Horizontal VSTOL landing on Mars:

 

[18Watt]

8 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

In the previous week I went from Ike to Moho using six gravity assists - plus 3 major manuevers in the end. It took 25 years, but I only spent 2500 m/s. It's the first time I manage to get to Moho reasonably cheap, and it's the first time I tried the recursive gravity assist strategy. I learned a lot of things.

I almost never go to Moho, but I needed to get there to complete a challenge.  My opinion is Moho is by far the most difficult body to get to.  My attempt to reach it ended up requiring multiple recovery vessels.  And then recovery vessels to recover the recovery vessels.   Getting there on 2500 m/s takes dedication, nice job!

[MythicalHeFF]

Yesterday I reached the north pole of Tylo, as part of my ongoing circumnavigation mission. It looked even more bizarre than I had anticipated. I was fully expecting chaotic terrain, but nothing like what I saw there. 

Before you ask, yes, jumping into the abyss below the pole will indeed kill you. No secret “get under the surface” glitch, unfortunately.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Landed a mining mission on Gilly in two parts- one rover to mine the tiny traces of water found only in the highlands and convert that to hydrogen while the other rover mines ore in the midlands, extracts CO2 and combines it with the aforementioned hydrogen to make liquid fuel; oxygen is also produced as a byproduct and can be turned into a little bit of oxidiser, while excess hydrogen can be liquefied and stored long term.

Theoretically.

In practice, power issues and the fact that I have to actually be focussing on the craft so that Simple Logistics will share the resources between the two mean that so far it’s produced a total of 10 units of liquid fuel in about as many days, and I need to make about a million… After discovering a tiny sliver of highlands near the South Pole (probably a biome map glitch but too bad!) surrounded by midlands, I relocated both rovers there but the sun is frequently blocked by hills as the pole is pretty low lying.

The next mission I send will probably be a huge pylon covered in solar panels and batteries to stick on a nearby hill for MOAR POWER! Ironic, since solar panels are currently working at over 800% rated power production and will increase even more as Moho moves to its mildly preposterous perihelion. (Maybe one of those hills is highlands?)

Oh, and the booster I used to send those rovers out there landed on Gilly on its RCS with a total of 3m/s of liquid fuel left for its nuclear engines. And then the first rover Krakenned itself into its component parts as soon as I undocked it, then when I reloaded with indestructibility cheats on it ended up with all its parts spinning like crazy and slowly heading off into orbit! Fortunately a dab of time warp (and removing all autostruts in the save file) brought it back under control.

Edited October 26, 2021 by jimmymcgoochie

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Landed a mining mission on Gilly in two parts- one rover to mine the tiny traces of water found only in the highlands and convert that to hydrogen while the other rover mines ore in the midlands, extracts CO2 and combines it with the aforementioned hydrogen to make liquid fuel; oxygen is also produced as a byproduct and can be turned into a little bit of oxidiser, while excess hydrogen can be liquefied and stored long term.

Theoretically.

In practice, power issues and the fact that I have to actually be focussing on the craft so that Simple Logistics will share the resources between the two mean that so far it’s produced a total of 10 units of liquid fuel in about as many days, and I need to make about a million…

I've tackled kerbalism isru with nuclear power plants, and i still need 5-15 years to refuel my ship.

trying it with regular solar panels... you're a HERO!|

[jimmymcgoochie]

33 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

I've tackled kerbalism isru with nuclear power plants, and i still need 5-15 years to refuel my ship.

trying it with regular solar panels... you're a HERO!|

I’m only doing it because Moho is so close to the sun in the Snarkiverse, each of the new circular solar panels is producing over 80EC/s at full exposure (10x power!) when Moho is near its aphelion, when they actually get some sun. The next bottleneck will be CO2 production, but I can always send another ISRU configured to make more of that; my idea of storing excess hydrogen in liquid form looks like it’s a bust though, there’s no way to tell the Kerbalism automation to switch the liquefier on only when hydrogen is full and the evaporator on when it’s empty.

I’m also not trying to refuel a small moon 

Edited October 26, 2021 by jimmymcgoochie

[king of nowhere]

2 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

I’m only doing it because Moho is so close to the sun in the Snarkiverse, each of the new circular solar panels is producing over 80EC/s at full exposure (10x power!) when Moho is near its aphelion, when they actually get some sun. The next bottleneck will be CO2 production, but I can always send another ISRU configured to make more of that; my idea of storing excess hydrogen in liquid form looks like it’s a bust though, there’s no way to tell the Kerbalism automation to switch the liquefier on only when hydrogen is full and the evaporator on when it’s empty.

I’m also not trying to refuel a small moon 

I may indeed have a "small moon" to refuel, but the weight of the industrial machinery is still a pain. doesn't matter the size, an ensemble of chemical plants + drills to make liquid fuel will need a couple of years to produce its own mass in liquid fuel, provided it can work 24/7 with full power (except on duna, where it can get CO2 from the atmosphere). with solar panels working 50% of the times, it's 4 years. when you launch a mining station, you commit it to staying in place at least 5 years, else it's cheaper to just send an equivalent mass of fuel.

So, I'd still call it a heroic proposition

[Admiral Fluffy]

4 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

I’m also not trying to refuel a small moon 

That's no moon. It's a space station.

 

[ProtoJeb21]

I've been doing a lot of interplanetary missions in my career save over the last few days, alongside Mun and Minmus contracts.

Earlier, I sent a pair of relay probes to Duna, DENCA-1 and DENCA-2 (Duna Equatorial Navigation and Comms Array), to prepare for future missions once I get contracts. However, one of the probes kept glitching out upon separating from the transfer stage. I had no choice but to turn on the unbreakable joints cheat so it wouldn't explode, then I got the other probe into its correct orbit. Going out of physics range caused the glitchy probe to correct itself, and now I can correct its orbit later on.

Spoiler

I launched the MOAL mission once a Moho transfer window opened up prior to DENCA arriving at Duna. However, it was a pretty bad trajectory, requiring a significant mid-course inclination change and a 5 km/s capture burn - which ended up costing around >6 km/s of dV and lasted half an hour. Fortunately, I packed plenty of dV into the transfer stage and orbiter. Once captured, the orbit and lander separated, with the orbiter staying in a high polar orbit and the lander getting into an equatorial orbit to prepare for landing. After a mission to finish a contract for Mimas Station, a contract to transmit science from Moho's surface appeared, so I used the MOAL lander to fulfill that.

Spoiler

The Mimas Station contract was fulfilled by adding on two of the big orange fuel tanks with 1.25m docking ports, which I'll use for ore canisters that can be filled and deposited by Hyperion and Theia-class transports I developed a few weeks ago.

Spoiler

Finally, an Eve transfer window has opened up, and with over 9M funds, I have plenty of cash to spend on four 150-250K probes: The three Freya probes (an orbiter, a science return mission, and a rover), and the Phaethon Corona Sampler. It will use an Eve flyby to get into a lower solar orbit, because its mission is to get all the way down to Kerbol's atmosphere - something I've never attempted before. At least one Eve gravity assist will make the whole thing way more efficient. This first Eve flyby will be able to get Phaethon into an orbit with a periapsis slightly closer than Moho, and an apoapsis at Eve's orbit, opening up the possibility for a second one.

So far I've only launched Freya I. It too is aiming for a close Eve flyby to capture, so seeing what the resulting Kerbolar orbit would be like led me to decide to have Phaethon perform a flyby. I won't be doing an aerocapture despite the heat shield; I added WAY too much dV for an Eve orbiter.

[Angelo Kerman]

I did a nighttime launch of Ascension, my Mk-33 configured as a spaceliner:

Ascension is bringing 28 tourists to Homestead Hotel:

[Robin Patenall]

I tested a rover design on simulated (i.e. Sandbox mode with cheat to orbit) Moho to check it didn't overheat and the design changes I made after testing it on the Mun.

Things I learnt:

• A Probodobodyne RoveMate can control the landing stage, but it's not great.
• A CommNet relay needs a probe core, so just sticking a relay antenna on the lander section (controlled by the rover probe core)  won't work when the rover detaches.
• A lander with a proper probe core is much easier to land.
• The rover design is nice and stable.
• The Bon Voyage set up now puts the rover on it's wheels not it's tail.
• The rover is not prone to flipping and can get up a 14 degree slope, stop and do science.
• The Mun test was useful, as I know not to go over blind ridges at 20m/s and accidently catch vacuum (not good for deployable solar panels)
• I need a ScanSat altimetry map before I drive around, especially over blind ridges because, Oh *****, that was the edge of a mountain.
• The fixed solar panels are much more robust.
• The reaction wheel in 'SAS Only' mode works well, once I turn it back on (need to set an action group as right clicking it while tumbling is not easy)
• The rover design can go down  and across a 40-42 degree slope without flipping and in a controlled manner with careful use of the brakes, wheel controls and SAS.
• There are 1400m mountains on Moho.
• The rover design doesn't overheat on Moho

[Pipcard]

1984-03-19 (Hatsunia local time) - Usagi-13 lunar rover at Sinus Medii