What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Fulgora]

I completed my STS Challenge Video for the Mun STS 5-7 video. Can't share the video unfortunately as Youtube doesn't let me log in to my account but here are some screenshots for the time being.

The station fully deployed / assembled in Mun orbit with Valentina on EVA:

The station has over 4000 m/s of dV in Mun orbit so it might as well count as a ship as well. And it does look quite different from the "usual" space station designs which I see as a plus. Packaging and the deployment sequence (KAL based) of the solar arrays and Xenon thrusters was a bit of a pain though.

On the plus side with a bit of autostrut and locking of the pistons / hinges the station is very sturdy and definitely *not* prone to Kraken attacks!

Moar screenshots in the spoiler:

Spoiler

Triple shuttle launch (courtesy of my kOS script):

 

STS Mun 5-7 Shuttles about to make orbit together:

 

STS Mun-7 coming in for landing after the successful mission:

And finally a behind the scenes view from the launch:

I used the middle Nerv engine from each shuttle to ensure they stay as close together as possible (plus some RCS help) but overall due to the weight / aerodynamics / trajectory being absolutely identical for all three crafts not too much messing around was necessary.

To be honest I am not 100% sure where the deviations are coming from but I assume that depending on which craft has focus the physics are slightly prioritized which ends up making a very small difference in drag calculations. But this is speculation on my part!

 

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Fulgora

[Kerbalsaurus]

6 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

A little underwater exploration....  swimming with the fishes

How'd you get the fish? Is that part of Parallax? Damn you graphics card that can barely run any visual mod!

[Rutabaga22]

32 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

A little underwater exploration....  swimming with the fishes

This is why you don't insult jeb, you'll be swimmin' with the fishes for years, no space, just water.

[Caerfinon]

17 minutes ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

How'd you get the fish?

The fish are Kerbal Konstructs animated statics. They will run on the lowest of graphic options. 

They are from Country Doggo's Random KK Bits on Spacedock

 

 

 

[capi3101]

Ugh. It's been five days since my last post already. Guess I should tell y'all what's been happening this past week before it gets late enough that I have to go to Day 6...

So if y'all will recall, I was in the middle of setting up communications satellites over Kerbin, a job that I completed in fairly rapid order at the start of business on Friday. That done, my attention turned to the Turdburglar 7 lander at Mün. Jeb brought her down in the Midlands at 0°46’22” N x 145°31’27” E, then climbed out and planted a flag like a proper Okie.

Sorry that it took you as long as it did to get to Mün this time around, Jeb.

Once done, Jeb and the tourists with him launched and burned to Kerbin, safely returning to the Deserts about four hundred clicks west of KSC on Saturday.

Shortly after Jeb burned for home, Bill made it once again to RSA satellite 41-10, where it was discovered that I had once again not set things up properly for him to be able to conduct his repair mission and so it had to be aborted yet again. A rapid reedesign of the craft took place to incorporate the needed changes and Bill once again burned for home, arriving safely in the water 640 klicks from KSC on Sunday.

In one permutation of the re-entry, I accidentally activated all the chutes too early and they burned off - it was necessary for Bill to bail out and parachute down. Bit hair-raising, as the last time I'd tried to do something remotely like that, the kerbal died at impact...

I did discover another design flaw with the Mr. Wizard 7 craft (Bill's repair ferry) at entry, namely that I had failed to add a decoupler between the command module and the service module. It was rather nerve-wracking watching the entire SM cook off the craft but at least that all stopped once the heat shield was finally exposed.

The last thing I got started with on Friday was construction of South Base three klicks to the south of the space center. I mainly was doing this to remember how exactly to put together a Pathfinder base and check for changes that have happened in the last few versions. I had issues with the old wheels on the TBD 7e base-seeding rover but was able to get underway once those had been replaced. Engineer Munbald Kerman came over from the Mobile Lab camped out by the runway and off he went with Val and Bob. OSE Workshop was giving me trouble with the Pathfinder parts. Eventually, I remembered that Extraplanetary Launchpads could function as a workaround, and by Monday I had most of the non-concrete base structures deployed.

Took me a good long while to remember how to build up a base when OSE decides it doesn't want to work. Pity that this base is already in the garbage can, but that often happens to the outposts I call South Base...

Unfortunately, the Kraken claimed this base during the day on Tuesday. I was able to get Munbald, Val and Bob out in time, but the base itself is already gone. It's fine by me, actually, as I'm not sure where I had it was optimal for this particular build anyway. Need to get an orbital surveyor going...

Aside from farting around with South Base over the weekend, I put a Boop-Boop 7x probe in position over Kerbin for a contract and got the Turdburglar back. Bill began his third attempt to repair satellite 41-10 aboard the redesigned Mr. Wizard, finally affecting the repairs on Tuesday.

Only took us three tries but we finally got the damn thing fixed. Still an ugly-looking overtooled satellite if you asked me.

The Mobile Lab also finished up its Chemical Analysis, and I finally checked back in with my six colonists aboard Hurdy Gurdy 7 latched on to Hadwin's Shipwreck. It turned out that I didn't need to release and re-grab the old capsule for the delivery of the colonists to count, and at this point I've got a 48-day wait before the colonists can move on to their next destination. I'm hoping I'll have a Mün surface base they can inhabit by the time that happens.

On Monday I decided to try and pair up a rover repair mission on Mün with a pair of orbital rescue missions. To that end I designed the Mumbo Jumbo 7 and launched it with engineer Billy-Bobly Kerman aboard. The craft made it to Mün and affected a pair of rendezvous with scientist Daphler and pilot Dudon Kerman on Tuesday, rescuing both kerbals. Unfortunately, Dudon's craft was in a retrograde orbit while Daphler's was inclined, and between the two rescues the craft didn't have sufficient delta-V remaining for a successful landing for the repair mission. So that was put on hold and the craft burned for Kerbin, arriving safely earlier today. 

I got a satellite in position for contract next on Monday, after which Munbald was launched aboard a Mr. Wizard craft to repair another satellite in high Kerbin orbit. That mission is ongoing and I'm not confident of its success just yet (fuel's looking mighty tight on that one). Another satellite was launched, this one for Mün; I put it into its final position earlier today for contract. The Sandstone Yoke mission finally reached Minmus for its historic flyby next; once that was complete and the craft had left Minmus's SOI, I set it on a course to return to Kerbin. It should arrive in another 54 hours. Aside from a parts test and another Münar satellite launch, the only other thing that's happened today is the return of Bill's Mr. Wizard craft.

Tried to time the screenies of each solar panel as they exploded off the service module; this was obviously the best one I could get...

Ended the official log for today with a parts test at the space center involving Jeb and Bob climbing aboard a fully loaded Auk 1 rescue spaceplane long enough to cover the test, then have to recover and hop out. I also launched another Boop-Boop 7x towards Mün. I'm hoping to get the Sandstone mission done sooner rather than later so I can begin proper missions at Minmus and finish mining the place out of science; still got a lot of parts left that need unlocking. I've got an orbital science mission wrapping up soon, the colonization mission and Munford's repair mission ongoing, and the new satellite mission to finish up.


TL, DR: Built stuff. Got Krakened. Took three times to repair a satellite. More satellites. Some rescues.

Edited October 6, 2022 by capi3101

[Beamer]

I'm sure it has been found before but I had never seen this easter egg yet. I had some tourists at Dres that needed a landing, but I don't really have a proper lander there yet, it's still underway with a 2nd batch of tourists. I got impatient, the ship used to get them there is a 3.7m with 4 Wolfhounds which provide a pretty solid base when you lock gimbals and land on a flat surface, so I picked a nice flat area and put it down. Colour me surprised when I found this.

First spoiler only shows the images of the egg without HUD, the second spoiler contains exact location info.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Puggonaut]

Time for some retro KSP ...........sort of

 

[N_Danger]

Two sections for a station at Duna were launched a say apart when the transfer window opened

D1 truss.

D2 truss.

And the Jool probe flew by Laythe.

[GDJ]

Flew from KSC to Uberdam Airfield (re: Kerbinside mod) and put in some hours and landing practice.

The old farts (Valentina and Bob) were the crew.

[panzer1b]

Well i wanted to try a new style, so i went with something a bit more "reality" inspired.  not really based on any particular spacecraft/station, but i sorta went with the stack of circular fuselages and a few semi rounded tanks to the rear.

i initially wanted some more exposed girdery bits, but i settled without it as i sorta needed every bit of real estate onboard for well, enough fuel to actually get over 2K dV with LFO engines (and not even the most efficient ones as i have one of those quad nozzle lifter engines on there with trash ISP (mostly cause i like the look of said quad engine and it saves 3 parts over having 4 909s clipped together).

Nice view of the interior, about as cramped as you can get with the crew surrounded by fuel tanks.  You can sorta see what is the payload too, to the sides and top...

Used a crapton of doors on this ship (it was originally gonna be a civilian fuel tanker, settles for something more conventional).  Front houses 4 generic LRMs which are unreliable (older model), but well there are 4 and its not like its meant to engage a bloody cruiser with those.  The ventral doors on the primary hull hoise the main weapons, namely 2 heavy torpedoes that are capable of being used against cruisers with decent effect (its no AKS torpedo, but its not far behind).

And the coolest part of the ship imo, the railgun turrets (which are fully hidden behind doors and slide out really nicely).

I took the inspiration for those guns from iron sky (the earth ship's 2 turrets), specifically the fact that they kinda extended outwards from the ship like mine do (albeit i only went with a extension+doors and not like 3+ hinges the earth ship had).

I think it turned out really nicely, especially since "realistic sci-fi" isnt a style i use very often in KSP.  Never really cared for replicating reality as well i can just go outside the house, jump in the car, drive on to the nearest spaceport, and attempt the real life version of GTA except with spacecraft (and prolly kaput horribly due to armed guards)...  Still, definitely a ship im keeping, along with the unarmed transporter variant that just guts the weapons bay and adds some docking ports in there for containers or fuel tanks.

[Starwhip]

Iota ISRU base deployment successful. Leap of Faith has docked with the Iota starport, and is awaiting refueling before crew returns to Gael for final training.

[Blufor878]

I'm revamping one of my old(er) rockets. This is the Archimedes, a large 3-crew science orbiter and booster that can achieve LKO quite handily.

I found that I needed to redo a lot, between having restock and a whole bunch of other mods, and a whole bunch of science parts (thank you @Beale, @Zorg and @CobaltWolf) that I could potentially staple on the exterior. More over here:

Unfortunately I have decided to put TUFX aside for the time being. I found that it was causing some pretty noticeable framerate drops, and also caused restock and some mod parts to become translucent.  If the TUFX team sees this, please don't take it personally. I love the filters TUFX provides, but I needed to give ol' reliable (my PC) a break. With that said, I am keeping AVP, Scatterer, EVE, Planetshine, and Camera Tools.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Blufor878

[Starwhip]

Leap of Faith refueling completed. Awaiting Niven transfer window (t-182 days) and crew training.

[capi3101]

The past 24 hours have been relatively busy. With a contract to conduct a Pathfinder Core Sample Analysis at Kerbin, my day began with a quick redesign of the Mobile Lab 7, swapping out the necessary parts to conduct the experiment. Jen, Bob and scientist Deswig Kerman boarded the rover and Jeb drove it off the edge of the runway. Once the two scientists had begun their work, Jeb hopped out and hitched a ride back to KSC; his job was done there. That job done, my next task was to redesign (yet again) the Mr. Wizard 7 engineering ferry, since the attempt to repair Aging Satellite 8FFJLN for contract went about as well as expected.

It's always embarassing when you don't pack enough fuel. It's even more so when you cut loose the part that has your solar panels on it and you're three days away from your destination...

The new design added more delta-V to the business end of the craft. After engineer Munbald Kerman had pushed his Wizard to where he'd return to Kerbin after his aborted attempt to fix the satellite, engineer Billy-Bobly Kerman boarded the redesigned craft and launched to a 115.6- by 113.4-kilometer, 158.81° inclined orbit. After finishing alignment with the target, he burned for a rendezvous with the satellite, arriving just twelve hours later (incidentally, about the same time Munbald was approaching periapsis and re-entry). I had finally read about Construction Mode and how to use it, and got the antenna needed to fix the satellite attached for contract just before I had to switch over. Billy-Bobly has burned for home at this point and will arrive in just under sixteen hours. Meanwhile, Munbald re-entered and lander safely in the Water about 1300 kilometers to the southwest of KSC.

(I'm thinking Construction Mode is how folks using KIS might be able to move bits and bobs between their KIS inventories and the stock inventories, but I'd need to do more experimentation to be sure).

The other thing that happened yesterday was the mission to repair and drive a rover on Mun, something I had hoped to take care of with the previous Mumbo Jumbo 7 rescue and repair mission. To that end I designed the Mumbo Jumbo Lite 7, designed to deliver a Kerbal engineer with the needed parts and nothing else - no mission bloat this time around. Bill boarded the new craft, which launched to a safe orbit and arrived at Mun about five hours later, landing at the target site in the Northeast Basin at 45°25’23”N 29°46’00”E. Bill went EVA and affected the necessary repairs.

I totally should've told Bill to swipe that sweet narrow band scanner. Especially since it made the back end heavy and this damn thing wanted to do wheelies when I was able to get it moving...

Bill added a QBE probe controller, two solar panels and a pair of extra batteries. I had to attach them to the rear of the rover because there were no available nodes forward, and as a result the thing was back heavy; when I finally did get to where I could drive the thing, I had to run it backwards for most of its journey. Ultimately I did get the rover to its target point, fulfilling the contract. Bill reboarded the lander at that point and burned for home, arriving at re-entry about seven hours later and landing safely in the Highlands 1500 klicks west of KSC.

I only got one replacement contract for these missions, and that's a rescue mission in LKO. Having finally gotten all my old craft unlocked, it means that today it seems I'll be able to conduct a flight of an Auk I rescue plane. It's been a while since I flew one of my spaceplanes; last plane I flew was for Scott Manley's Runway Project and that was definitely an entirely different experience.  Sandstone Yoke returns from Minmus soon; I have plans to launch communication satellites out towards Minmus once the probe is about halfway home to start setting things up for landings. CommNet will neet to get established out there anyway even if that proves to not be the point of the next exploration contract. I still have a long-term "colonization" mission ongoing and another Pathfinder experiment happening in LKO, and the current Mobile Lab experiment, which is going very quickly and should wrap up in just a few days. My other contracts are predicated on the parts I won't be able to unlock until I'm done fishing science from Minmus, so I hope to get that done in the near future.

TL, DR: Fixed a satellite. Fixed a rover. Got out and pushed. Was generally a good day.

Edited October 7, 2022 by capi3101

[Rutabaga22]

Today I found out that it took me 15 days irl to get to space in ksp and then a month to get into orbit.

[GDJ]

11 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Today I found out that it took me 15 days irl to get to space in ksp and then a month to get into orbit.

Sounds about right.

As for me, flew to one of my home-modded airports, which is still a work in progress......



Home to the currently displayed 400 metre flagpole (I'm changing that) and the Helipad that needs to be moved.

Edited October 8, 2022 by GDJ

[Davi SDF]

I thought SSPX's largest centrifuge wasn't big enough for my project... so i decided to make one!
Full album here: https://imgur.com/a/8qNCz5p

I called it: ORANOS (not officially... yet)

Spoiler

Its very big...

Spoiler

SSPX's largest centrifuge for comparison:
 

Spoiler

Sadly, thanks to stock robotics not being very stiff, they became very bendy on the construction process   : (
But, i thought it looked good anyway:
 

Spoiler

 

No, i did not send it to orbit on a rocket, i cheated for testing purposes (I like making my life harder, but i am not that much of a masochist)
 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Davi SDF

[panzer1b]

Made a new ship, to replace the old BCorp stealth i had from ages ago (that i never particularly liked).

Armed with 2 1.25m capital ship grade heavy torps (2 in the internal bay), 2 stealth ion missiles (basically a LRM but with ion engines and more complexity) and a SRM-6 for emergency point defense or finishing something thats crippled by the other weapons.

Primary thrust is 6 measly ion engines, a bit weak but well thats sorta the way ion anything works, a TWR of .02 for extra painful burns.

Ofc if willing to sacrifice some of the stealth capability you have access to 0.1 TWR (still rather pathetic but about par as far as a frigate sized warship rocking ions will get).

View of the engine clusters, the center one is always exposed (but wedged pretty deep in the hull so it shouldnt be detectable on sensors), and the 4 extra are used when high thrust is needed.  Each is actually a cluster of 6 ions (wish stock KSP actually had a 1.25m ion engine, stacking the 0.6m ones is just part count intensive (not to mention adds quite a bit to physics calcs when theya re running all at once, not sure how some of the ships ive seen on the forums with 200+ ion engines can even run?).

All in all very happy with the ship's looks.  Hull is based on the anubis from the expanse.  Wings are based on the normandy from mass effect.  That said, its not really a reploica, i just wanted to make a stealth ship that was fully assymetric, and went with the most natural style, being lots of weird angles and shapes.  Only thing i completely took from the anubis was those triangular bits which were black in the show but i wanted some contrast and to sorta match AKS stealth ships (BCorp isnt exactly advanced enough to make a stealth without stealing said AKS tech) which are black with some gold edges/highlights.

Also gave it 6 solar panels ti try and counteract the insanely power hungry engines, but they completely ruin the appearance and are only extended in friendly territory since i doubt a bunch of extended solar panels are very "stealthy" nomatter what sci-fi universe you live in (at least not without full on cloaking or something of the sort)...

[GDJ]

And it's tinfoil hat time!

[Blufor878]

TONIGHT (on Kerbal Gear)!
Lanhua needs more parking spots!


We convert an N1 for cargo use and waste a bunch of paint on it!


And an egg becomes a heavy lifter!

Edited October 9, 2022 by Blufor878

[Starwhip]

And so our valiant crew of Galileo, Bobert, Jade, Poody, Sigma, and Raging take the first leap of any Gaeleans into interplanetary space.

[IncompetentSpacer]

I have taken a short break in KSP long time now due to IRL obligations but today I managed to get an hour to do a mission in my RP-1 career. This is just a long duration mission, allowing me to harvest last bit of science from  low earth orbit but also injects 600 000 credits into the budget.

I have forgotten to take screenshots of the rocket launch  which showcased some of the graphic mods from their best side so I only got an image of Gemini capsule orbiting to show.

https://imgur.com/5JBYxkR

Also KSP 2 needs really to rethink how maneuvering (setting up maneuvering node, intercepting an object etc...) is being implemented. At same time as the mission above I have running mission to land probe on Mars. Setting up mid course correction to intercept mars SOI because initial intercept disappeared after reload, took loooong time.

Edited October 9, 2022 by IncompetentSpacer

[Watermel00n]

Finished editing my first eve ascent. Wasn't exactly today though.

[SpacePixel]

Less is more, more or less

So I, uhm, yeah, remember when Cassandra had sixteen engines and about a hundred tons of dry mass? Yeah, these times are long gone. Everybody seems to be awfully concerned about space whales' wellbeing these days, and gas prices aren't helping it either, so the 2022 Cassandra is a little on the leaner side.

Losing some weight certainly helped -- while it does take longer to refuel with a smaller ore converter, the TWR in vacuum mode has increased quite a lot, and now Cassandra can easily land on Duna without unscheduled disassemblies. The shorter cargo bay can still fit the Kaupaloki ISRU rover, which can jump around most celestial bodies with a bunch of science equipment and two kerbals with a history of questionable life choices.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Not technically "in" KSP, but today I deleted a bunch of old modded KSP copies that are either obsolete or which I made but never actually used. I'd say at least 50GB was deleted, possibly more.