Jump to content

What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

Recommended Posts

After landing on the Mun and Minmus without a hitch I thought I'd have a go at getting a lander, 2 Kerbanauts and a rover on Duna. Built the lander with the rover attached to the bottom and practiced flying the thing and landing it safely at home. Tried to get it into orbit, not enough DV so added some more solid boosters. Now it almost makes it to Low kerbin Orbit. I landed in the Desert without using the Parachutes and went on a drive in the rover, took some samples and Jeb and Bob took a dip in an Oasis. Got a fair bit of science for the Desert Biome.

Next built a launch vehicle which I thought would get me to Duna but I don't think I have enough fuel, so I left it in Orbit. Meanwhile I built a larger planetary tug which definitely has enough juice to get to Duna and back. After launching that docked in orbit, made the calculation for the burn to Duna and waited for the correct planetary alignment. Started my burn and the docked ship started wobbling alarmingly and the DV actually went up rather than down. Tried ramping up the thrust slowly but the oscillation just got worse and worse and then I ran out of fuel and my engine shut down where I noticed the fatal flaw in my design. My fuel pipes from the 4 big radial tanks were not connected, this must have happened while I was tweaking the design. So all stop and I started looking through the mods for a solution. Docking struts or Quantum struts would solve the wobble and KAS could be used to solve the fuel issue. So last night I started trying to get a repair mission started but decided to do something else so spent a few hours building planes and a flying bedstead and trying to land on the nearby island. I will hopefully get Jeb and Bob off to Duna today. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a monster. When you said a single tank of Gas what you should have said was a really REALLY large tank of gas. Good effort, Haven't yet managed to land a spaceplane successfully. But I did produce a rather nifty ejection system for Jeb for when things went wrong. So far he's survived with his grin still intact. 15+ g flat spins don't seem to bother him. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished reinforcing the Jool mission mothership. Spent about 2 hours adding struts while in orbit - about 40 additional struts in all.

Before:

http://i.imgur.com/zLU0tqu.jpg

After:

http://i.imgur.com/JRY0n9H.jpg

At this point it looks more like a sailing ship than a space ship. Stability tests show that adding the struts vastly improved performance; it wiggles around a bit while turning, but under power it flies straight as an arrow with no oscillation.

How is that not lagging your game at all?!?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must be doing something wrong. My current cargo SSTO is twice as big as yours and it can only carry 2.5 tonnes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few minutes ago I started creating a debris belt. Just 8 more launches to go.

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/RAMdN/embed"></iframe>

Only 8 more?

:P

Kesslersyndrom_zps223f8186.png

I did this with 10 or less launches.

DunaCrewDepartureVehicle_zpsbd14ec33.png

Also my Duna Crew departure vehicle is ready to go. Just needs a crew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a monster. When you said a single tank of Gas what you should have said was a really REALLY large tank of gas. Good effort, Haven't yet managed to land a spaceplane successfully. But I did produce a rather nifty ejection system for Jeb for when things went wrong. So far he's survived with his grin still intact. 15+ g flat spins don't seem to bother him. :D

Thanks! It really does have to be a large tank of gas if you want to attempt a Duna landing. About 80% or so of all that fuel is spent purely on making orbit around Kerbin and Duna. Also, you have to fight that plane tooth nail and claw all the way down on re-entry at Kerbin because all those engines and no counterweight fuel means she is REALLY heavy in the back and wants to flip over constantly, but it's manageable.

And don't worry about the G forces, my guys took a short 15+ G hit as well when opening chutes on Duna. Could have mitigated that considerably by staging the height at which they open but like you said, they seem to grin and bear it quite well.

Edited by Cirocco
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jool-5 mission done, with bonus landings!

Mission description: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83759-Jool-5-Mission-Report?p=1225009

Be forewarned. This album below has 321 images in it. I took pictures everywhere. I may try to make a second gallery with just the highlights.

View the thumbnails: http://imgur.com/a/nS4em/all

Gallery:

Javascript is disabled. View full album
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must be doing something wrong. My current cargo SSTO is twice as big as yours and it can only carry 2.5 tonnes.

An efficient spaceplane is a small spaceplane. The most effective way to improve performance and capability is to get rid of unnecessary mass. Only when you've removed everything you don't absolutely need should you consider adding things to further improve the design (even fuel).

Take engines, for instance... They are heavy. Having more than you really need is just adding more weight to lift. Not to mention, you need extra fuel to lift them, which just adds tankage and decreases your performance more. Fuel is also heavy... if you're carrying extra fuel to lift equipment you don't really need to have, you're reducing your efficiency as well as payload capability.

Here are some of my other SSTO designs: Bumblebee, Javelin, Stingray, Skate

The main thing they have in common is they use very few engines, and they use very small, lightweight rocket engines when an airbreathing-only jet engine is used for atmospheric flight. If you treat reducing engine-weight as the first place to seek improvement, it will lead to reduced fuel requirements as well as reduced structural requirements, which also reduces fuel requirements, all of which reduces wing-lift requirements, where less weight and drag further reduces fuel requirements... keep working through those iterations and before long you've got a tiny plane that can do the same job as the big plane... or a big plane that can lift a lot more payload than before.

Edited by RoboRay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

IE6GgLg.jpg

A newbie kerbal astronaut crashed his fuel tanker while Bob is standing there, guiding him to get closer to the SSTO for refuelling. Bill Kerman is really angry at Bob now because he left a newbie unattended. And so, Bob walked, inspecting the damages.

OrcAs1S.png

And now both of them are scared, because they promised to Jeb that his SSTO will not be damaged. To make things much worse, the newbie accidentally move the tanker backward while the fuel hose is still connected

PH7Gnjb.jpg

Edited by Aghanim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yesterday I grabbed my first asteroid from Kerbolar orbit and got it into Kerbin orbit, but then the ship spontaneously exploded and the asteroid lost all its velocity via a glitch, and today I had to send a ship up to grab it and get it into a stable kerbin orbit before it fell, then a stable minmus orbit.

Why did I get it from Kerbolar orbit rather than as it was flying by Kerbin? A while ago I had to rescue a stranded ship from an orbit around Kerbol, and I figured that grabbing an asteroid would be basically the same thing except I'd be bringing it into orbit rather than re-entering with it. It was the same thing, but grabbing one doing a flyby would probably have taken less time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I installed the "quantum struts revisited" mod and then went looking in the Parts to find the strut gun, nothing there so thought I'd sort out my wobbly ship issue with KAS. Checked on the map do discover my Lander, rover and planetary Tug had disappeared from LKO. Seems the Kraken has come visiting while I was away. Luckily I had a quicksave and F9 brought Jeb and Bob back with ship intact. Had another look at it and decided that I needed to rethink my strategy so I deorbited the tug followed by the lander and went through a practice landing back at Kerbal space center. Good thing too because for some reason the staging of my parachutes was messed up so I had to separate the capsule and manually deploy my chutes seconds from impact. Bob and Jeb got back in one piece but if I had tried to land on Duna the boys would now be stuck. Tried to build an even larger launcher to get the lander and enough fuel up in one go. This is proving to be a challenge to get into orbit because my middle stage just doesn't have enough power. I am trying to put up a large lander, rover and a lot of fuel. I think it's about 238 tons Now thinking that I maybe I should send a few science probes ahead first, get enough science and then send the boys when I have heavy rocketry on the Tech tree. or maybe I should just burn the fuel in the transfer stage launching it and refuel in orbit before pushing on to Duna. Decisions, decisions. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...