What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Piper]

Today I pulled off one of those "I can't believe that actually worked" moments. I was testing out the Taurus command module with a couple of Kerbals aboard, basically just a medium length XL fuel tank and engine (kind of a large version of Mercury's Little Joe), and splashing down in the ocean to confirm how many parachutes I needed (I went with 6). Testing was going well, when I got the "brilliant" idea of using the abort rockets aboard the Taurus module to slow down the very last of the decent, Soyuz style. I had already slowed down to about 6.8m/s, well slow enough to splashdown, when I hid the spacebar to activate the rockets. The abort rockets of course did EXACTLY what they were designed to do and sent the capsule soaring up into the air, leaving me wondering "why the heck did I think it would do anything different"? In case you haven't made a mistake like this yourself, if you get a positive vertical velocity while under parachutes, those parachutes disapear. So here I was, flying up into the air, parachutes gone, no way to slow my decent, with death imminent and seemingly unavoidable. The only thing I could think of to rescue the two Kerbals, was to send one of them outside the soon to crash capsule, on a probable suicide mission, repack the chutes, and redeploy them all before crashing into the very quickly approaching ocean. Hudvan Kermin bravely volunteered to go outside (he may have just been trying to get away from Philmund's screaming), and while hanging on the side of the capsule repacked the first chute. With the ocean approaching VERY quickly at this point I didn't want to wait to deploy the chute, so I redeployed it with Hudvan still hanging on. I thought Hudvan was going to go flying off the side to his death, but he actually managed to hang on. With the first chute deployed, and the capsule now slowing down, the process was repeated with all but one of the chutes before safely splashing down in the ocean. Not surprisingly, Hudvan did come flying off the capsule and into the water once the capsule splashed down, but it didn't matter because both he and Philmund inside the capsule where alive and even though he couldn't get back inside (the hatch was underwater), they could be recovered seperately. I wish I had screenshots of it all, but naturally I was a little too busy clicking on things and panicking (I may have actually held my breath though all of it).

[cantab]

Flew to the pyramids on Kerbin. In "easy mode" mind, with a stock plane (the Aeris 3A) and kerbalmaps to guide me. Spotted them rather close and high so had to kill the throttle and turn and descend steeply for a deadstick landing. Was sloppy, but came down intact.

Now I'm torn between heading for the inland space centre, or trying to get back to the regular KSC with my fuel left.

[Roastduck]

Added a zoology bay, a couple of experiments, and a kibbal supply to my station

[Kerbal01]

recreated the spacex OG2 mission. launched a probe out of Kerbol's SOI. hiked on top of the vab, i am bored now.

[magnemoe]

Trying to dock to an asteroid

two seconds before

Yes ship clipped trough the asteroid.

[McFarnsworth]

I built a 250 ton to LKO lifter for my (slowly progressing) Jool-5 entry. I ever so slightly overbuilt it an it turned out to be a 500 ton to LKO launcher.

Time to add some more fuel to my Jool-5 mothership.

[Bishop149]

I'm still getting to grips with Interstellar and started playing around with microwave power transmission.

I set up 3 relays round Kerbin and I must admit I'm quite proud of how they turned out. . . not quite a perfect 120 degree angle between them (all in the region of 120-122) but damn close. First time I've tried such precision placement of multiple co-orbiting satellites and it worked out well!

[michaelhester07]

Long time no update... well.

Before I can release my stanford torus mod I want to make sure it is possible to build a stanford torus in a legit career. It's funny because I'm going through the same things they would have to do IRL to accomplish this.

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Here's how this is playing out so far:

A construction ship was launched to mun orbit where I planned to build the first torus. There it deployed the build station and became the first parts to add to the station. Second a mun base was deployed on an ore field. This base would launch ore from the surface to rendezvous with the build station. Aiding me here was the fact that my engineers discovered the components of solid rocket fuel within the mun soil near the base. Some refinement later and we could launch solid booster equipped vessels into orbit. The kerbin ground teams had to ship up a tug to grab the raw launched material and drag it to the final construction site. Since there are no lagrange points in KSP this is harder than it seems. The tug is equipped with powerful ion engines to make this process a little more efficient. It wasn't efficient enough though. I set out to deploy a second base in a location where Kethane and Ore were close together if not on the same node. Once such place was found where and ore field and kethane field were adjacent. The second base was deployed there. A mere 5 minute ride out to the kethane field is all it takes to get fuel for the launches. Thus the base you see in the imgur was born. It's not without some drawbacks that I solved on the way:

The launchpad had to be equipped with outriggers for stabilization and landing gear. If it ended up too close to the ground the base Kraken would claim it. Landing gear seems to keep the kraken away.

The metal storage pod (the blue long pod) didn't have enough landing gear stabilizers on it. nothing can be connected to it without it being destroyed.

Third thing: seems the legs on my science center are holographic (silly engineers). They exist but kerbals can pass through them and nothing can attach to them.

This construction epic would be better if the progressive builds mode for EPL had the target object build poly by poly over the course of the construction. It would be cool to see my torus in the construction phase like the Death Star from episode 6.

[Jesrad]

Today I completed a 3000 km science rover trip on the Mun, collecting about 4000 science remotely by going through ~10 different biomes from equator to south pole, then sent a retrieval craft to pick up the crew and the remaining 2800 science. I left a trail of flags (one in each biome + 1 every couple hundred kms) along the way and had all sorts of adventures (climbed up the Arch too).

Then my hard drive died, and my backup retore on my older laptop failed so I have no more epic save with all my designs, excess science, videos and pile of mods, and of course no screenies to show for the awesome mun trip through canyons and craters and half the entire friggin moon. I probably lost all my music too, and most of the photos I took of my son growing up over the last two years

[McFarnsworth]

This was the (dummy) payload I used for my 500 ton lifter. Should be able to move a fairly large asteroid quite a bit, and attach parachutes to it in case I want to land it. Or I can use it as an orbital fuel depot. Or attach landers, probes and rovers to it instead of the extra claws and use it as an interplanetary mothership or whatever.

[severedsolo]

Captured the smallest asteroid I've seen so far in this game! I think this must be at the very smallest end of a Class A

[Roastduck]

Designed a mun rocket today.

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Think 7,017m/s delta-v will get me to the mun and back?

Edited June 23, 2014 by Roastduck
remembered how to do Imgur albums

[soulsource]

I continued launching tankers for my Eve mission. Five are on their way, and at least another five are planned. The plan is to use them to refill the lander in Eve orbit, then check how much fuel is still missing, and send the remaining fuel and the crew on the next transfer window.

Edit:

@Roastduck: I think you'll need more. Even if you take the numbers from the Wiki, which are for perfectly carried out manoeuvres, you'll only have nearly enough. If you are lucky and you manage to land at a rather high point on the Mun, you might actually manage, but as said, you need perfect manoeuvres... I wouldn't attempt a Mun landing with less than 7500 dV.

About embedding albums: On the album page on Imgur there's a link titled "embed". It'll give you HTML code that you can paste in this forum. If you want to check out how it's going to look, use the advanced mode to look at the preview.

Side note: Could someone please confirm that the value of 210 m/s for circularizing the orbit around the Mun, as given on the Kerbin dV Map, is correct? My own calculation gives 311 m/s, yet I might have made an error somewhere, which I now, at midnight, am no longer able to find...

Edited June 23, 2014 by soulsource

[Whackjob]

Been prototyping engine clusters. Thought I'd cook up something to put on the exchange for once. Almost done with this:

136,000 thrust. There's a LOT more fuel than there appears to be, given the engine clusters are those things that are also fuel tanks. They're just inside the lower tanks for convenience and appearance.

[Scholar]

We need a download link.

You know, for scientific reasons and totally not for sending Jeb past mach 5...

[Padishar]

136,000 thrust. There's a LOT more fuel than there appears to be, given the engine clusters are those things that are also fuel tanks. They're just inside the lower tanks for convenience and appearance.

Looking very nice... Have you got any other stats? Max tonnage to LKO? Thrust of sepratrons?

[Fizwalker]

Designed a mun rocket today.

http://imgur.com/a/96IdJ

Think 7,017m/s delta-v will get me to the mun and back?

No.... You need MOAR boosters! =P

[Whackjob]

We need a download link.

You know, for scientific reasons and totally not for sending Jeb past mach 5...

Yes, I plan on putting this on the exchange or curse or whatever it is nowadays. As soon as I take the time to find out how.

Shakedown run. Just prior to booster separation. With dummy Munar lander as payload weight.

#EDIT: Have updated picture twice. Now at 1,500 m/s before booster separation. Gonna keep angle and go until fuel burnout and see what kinda speed I make it to.

#EDIT2: Booster seperation at 1,728 m/s. Booster separation was surprisingly successful:

Explosion was just one truss clipping another. Fuel gauges show as mostly empty, but that's a little misleading... very many engines all draining a central stack. Gauges always show weird. Let's see what speed I hit before burnout.

#EDIT3: Turns out just shy of 4,000 m/s:

Gonna clean it up a bit, make it pretty, then put it on wherever. Any advice on how to share this subassembly?

#EDIT4: Ok, now I see that most of the central fuel did in fact burn out before booster separation. So there's a flaw. And it turns out it's just due to the very nature of the engine clusters. I am not sure if this is something I can resolve. But, it still works quite well!

Edited June 23, 2014 by Whackjob

[Lysergic]

Today was a big day for my Kerbals. Having put in 480 hours with just one successful docking under my belt (but having done return trips from Moho and Jool), I decided it was time to do a proper Apollo style mission using just Kerbal Engineer. It took several launches to get the staging and decouplers right for the Command and Lander Modules.

The launch.

After the transfer burn, Bill switched to the lander module, decoupled from the command module, and landed. Excellent luck and slight planning led to this nice flat area as our landing site. Close to 1/2 the fuel was used in the landing though.. After a little Bill got back in the lander and took off.

After another 30 minutes of dicking around with translation buttons, multiple quickloads after Bill hit the wrong one and suddenly found himself surrounded by explosions, and I am finally there! This photo seconds before a successful docking!!

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m542/heavytr3vy/screenshot33.png' alt='screenshot33.png'>

The landing module was decoupled and left to float in orbit around the Mun forever. Bill provides some early morning fireworks for the lifeless continent below.

All in all quite pleased with myself. Still convinced docking is harder than just bringing a crapload of fuel along. But there you have it!

Edited June 24, 2014 by Lysergic

[sumrex]

I Left My Angry Rover Design prowling the moon.

I Also tested my Paveway SSTO. It seems to be of two minds flys like an absolute champ sometimes, other times it develops pitch problems when rockets are ignited to go into orbit. All in all a very compact design. with a high delta V command section.

(fixed the craft later by getting rid of the radial intakes on the rear that were creating drag in one rockets exhaust and doubling up the ones in the front with a little airhogging)

Bob Had the first crack at it.

Tested steering....

Success!!!!

Edited June 26, 2014 by sumrex

[Commander Zoom]

I finished sending my Jool Flotilla off to the distant giant. Since it's going to take a long time to get there (about two and a half Kerbin years), I did not pack light.

Here are the craft of the First Jool Expedition, as seen after their first perigee burn of 600 m/s, which took them out to about geosync; the second burn was over twice that (another small burn would have put them above escape velocity, and I was out of time before the best launch window anyway). Each is over 200 tons loaded, and considerably less (164, 146, 147) after their trans-Jool burns.

Jool 1, from right to left: a folding heat shield for aerobraking at Jool and/or Laythe; the Sita 3 lander (it seats three, you see ) for Laythe; the Vishnu service module with two Lakshmi fuel tenders on the side docking ports and various probes attached as limpets to the smaller (Jr.) ports; Jool Bug 1 ("Discovery"), a vacuum-moon lander and tug that serves as propulsion for the stack; and a Ganesh tank module.

The final burn(s) used all of the fuel in the rear tank(s), and half or more of what was in the Vishnus; I was tempted to discard the empties, but they still have a full load of monopropellant (I don't use Kethane, so they can't get more where they're going) and the whole thing weighs only 9 tons now, including said monoprop (3.4t), a battery, probe brain and reaction wheel, and other potentially useful hardware... not worth it, just to drop from (in this case) 164 to 155.

Jool 2 is similarly constructed, but instead of a lander, it has the core of Jool Station, to be put in orbit around Laythe. The first Duna expedition put a hab on the surface and went roving about from there, but there's so little land on Laythe, it was decided to go for an orbital base of operations for the Jool expedition. (Also, trips to the other moons can bring their science back for processing in the lab.) The second Jool Bug is called "Ringmaster", after the ill-fated first spaceship to Saturn in John Varley's Titan series.

This stack turned out to be a bit too long, and very "whippy" under acceleration; future missions - I'm already planning to send similar stations to Duna and Eve - will have a kerbonaut attach some KAS struts after assembly in orbit to reduce flexing.

Veda 2 is the only ship that's coming back to Kerbin someday; the other two will be broken up for parts in the Jool system. (Veda 1 went to Duna, and will be returning when the transfer window opens.) Under the heat shield is the hammer-headed Brahma hab module, with an inflatable centrifuge packed full of supplies for the long trip; another Vishnu, with two Lakshmi consorts (each pair holds as much fuel as an orange Jumbo, and can accompany and resupply the landers in orbit) and still more probes; the Shiva drive module, constructed similarly to the Bugs but unmanned and for the sole purpose of moving the Veda stack; and, bringing up the rear, a Ganesh.

(By now, you have probably figured out the naming theme of my space program. It was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, as was their tendency to do everything in threes.)

As you can see from the crew cams, Jeb is leading the expedition, with Bill as co-pilot; Bob, always a more sober sort, decided to stay on the Mun in command of the base there. The remaining 6 kerbonauts were hand-picked by Jeb himself. (Including the side cupolas and the centrifuge, Brahma can hold at least 24, but I figure that one-third of that - plus the supplies on the other ships, for their stay at Jool - is reasonable for a long voyage like this.)

Here we see Jool 1 and Veda 2 outbound, having completed their long burns. The latter was already outside the orbit of the Mun, and the centrifuge inflated and spun up, by the time the second image was taken. Jeb told everyone to take a good long look and wave goodbye to Kerbin, as it'll be a long time before they see her again.

(If you're wondering about the size of the centrifuge, it's scaled up to 2x Porkjet's original, the better to fit the other parts and/or the needs of this mission. The ring is just a little smaller than the deployed heat shield, though of course it'll be deflated and secured for aerobraking, at the same time the solar panels are hauled in.)

Once the main ships were safely on their way, three more tankers - the Ganesh X variant, for "extra-planetary", with a nuclear transfer stage - were sent after them, to supply fuel for additional operations in the Jool system and the return of Veda 2 at the end of the expedition. These were put into orbits that would bring them to Jool weeks apart, some time after the arrival of the vanguard.

And here's the image from the tracking station of the whole Flotilla. The third tanker in line has just passed the Mun's orbit, with the rest strung out ahead. And that white sphere at the upper left, with the probe icon(s)? That's where they're going.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Commander Zoom

[problemecium]

Prototyped the eventual successor to Kerbatar 2:

In this configuration it comprises 685 parts and weighs 540 tons. Along the sides are docking bays for up to twelve probes and landers, and in the front section are accommodations for up to 8 Kerbals (although I could cram in up to 30 if I didn't worry about their comfort or having enough escape pods).

[Floppster]

Started a new save as racking up on mods while being mid-game isn't that fun.

While testing out Gamma 1, Bill and Mitbald made an unauthorised landing on the Mun because the guys over at mission control couldn't tell them what to do due to a lack of radio systems.

Sad though, thay can't really talk about it since Wernher would get them fired for abusing hist test crafts.

[Tw1]

Tried out screen capture technology. I seem to have had some success.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Tw1

[Bishop149]

Today upon arriving at Eve I realised that by dual purpose Lander / Impactor science probe lacks a control module on the "Lander" Section.

It will therefore have to become a:

"Impactor that desperately tries to run airborne experiments and transmit all the results off before its smashes hard into the landscape. . . . "