What did you do in KSP1 today?

[NecroBones]

I have spent countless hours refining my cool little craft. Now it barely moves at all!

http://i.imgur.com/2xvGruW.png

http://i.imgur.com/CP8z5PZ.png

Keep up the good work!

[Felsmak]

Keep up the good work!

Thank you! My engineers have developed an experimental test craft that will be used to discover new ways to minimize the falling height even more. The scientists have even theorized that a complete closing of the gap could be achieved if I removed the launch clamp and just let the craft lie directly on the pad.

I wonder what lies beyond. I really don't know if it's even possible to make the fall any shorter than that. Not without completely altering the universe as we know it, anyway.

[troyfawkes]

In preparation for the new difficulty settings menu in 0.25, I figured I'd give not ever reverting (inc. quick saves) a try in a new game.

Rescuing Addos from LKO was interesting, had a <|> design with two mk 1 command pods attached by a decoupler, the backup inverted under the main pod, each pod with their own parachutes and separatrons for softer landing. Geneker took the Rafflesia rocket up and managed a good rendezvous despite being a bit late in launching. Addos hopped into his pod, main engine burn to bring the periapsis inside the atmosphere on course for KSC.

The next phase decouples the drive section to leave the two pods by themselves (point radial+ so the drive section re-enters faster and below us). Finally, turning normal and decouple separates both pods so that they enter side by side with some distance between them.

LITTLE DID I FIGURE, you can only control one pod at the same time. Even with RealChutes armed and set properly... Needless to say, Geneker burned up on re-entry after saving his fellow kerbal. Not sure how I feel about it as technically the plan would have worked fine and was pretty solid for the tech level if it weren't for the weird limitations of the game. Regardless, makes for a much more interesting story

The second interesting occasion was when Addos (the one Gene saved) went up in the Azobe rocket to deliver three communication satellites for my Mun network as well as do some high and low orbital science. Hitting orbit though I realized he didn't have enough delta V for the Mun... But Minmus? Yep. So instead of scrapping the mission entirely (still lost out on the Mun contracts), we went out to visit the mint ice cream moon.

I figured the comms network would be about 500km and circular, so I started with getting that orbit. Problem was, I only had about 130 dV at that point, and the satellites weren't self-propelled. So what do I do? Dump them all in the same place and hope I can get Addos back?

Luckily I noticed another mistake I'd made in building the rocket that turned out pretty useful; I had attached the satellites with decouplers and hadn't powered them down, so in decoupling I'd be shooting them pretty far in the directing I was facing with the rocket (actually the reverse because they were hanging on behind the rocket, so if I faced prograde they'd accelerate retrograde). I figured I could get a good spread if I fired them all into elliptical orbits with a low periapse at three set points in my existing orbit, so that's what I did. I wound up with kind of concentric ellipses around Minmus, with pretty decent coverage from the omnis and dishes facing Kerbin, Mun and the active vessel.

Now to get back to Kerbin! Addos ran out of fuel mid burn and would have sailed past Kerbin with a 200+km periapsis. Whaaat... Alright, emergency measures! Same trick decoupling the drive section and giving us a bit of a forward boost. Still not enough though. Crap. Alright... I seem to remember this old trick my dad taught me... Get out and push?

Locking the pod prograde at Minmus and retrograde in the Kerbal SOI was really helpful making sure we were lined up, and after a fun little space walk, Addos got the periapse down to just under 30km. The return was surprisingly close to KSC, just behind the mountains on the west, despite the complete lack of planning beyond, "oh god don't make me send up the stupid Rafflesia again..."

So thems were the learnings. That and two or three satellite launches that went upside down and fiery. I honestly think it was way more fun this way; no more, "THIS is how it has to be." Now it's just dealing with the crap that comes and it's way more exciting than save scumming

[Franklin]

Oh my god.

[Korkin]

Today i started the carrier mode)

so here my first landings to Mun and Minmus

and Minmus)

[Srpadget]

I had One Of Those Hours. When everything happens at once, despite my intentions.

I got distracted by a launch window for a probe. That window came up shortly before my imminent Mun Orbital Station needed to make its Munar orbit-insertion burn. It was close, but there seemed to be enough time between them that it would be okay. Once the probe was on its way, I took a look at the progress of the Munar-Station-to-be, which had about 15-20 minutes until its burn. (Heh. Well timed!)

And then, while I was in map view centered on Mun, I realized ... OMG I NEED TO DO A RENDEZVOUS BURN REALLY SOON NOW (to dock a tug to a Mun lander with near-empty tanks, so it can get to the aforementioned Mun Orbital Station for refueling). Or else wait around, burning doughnuts in the sky, until the lander gained a full lap on the tug...with Bob and Jeb getting impatient and bored in the lander. (And possibly running out of snacks.)

So, RUSHRUSHRUSH set up the rendezvous burn. Fire. Note that the resulting closest approach, while not ideal (0.3km rather than my preferred 0.1-0.0) should do, and I have no flippin' TIME to fine-tune it! RUSHRUSHRUSH over to the Munar Station and its long, barely-stable Nukes-towing-flexible-structure orbital capture. Resulting orbit isn't as circular as I'd like (about a km difference between peri and apo), but NO TIME TO FINE TUNE NOW! RUSHRUSHRUSH back over to the tug and lander and their imminent docking! OMG well in physics range already! NO TIME TO SET UP A NODE JUST MATCH VELOCITY BY NAVBALL AND HOPE! Worked out okay, though the resultant docking operation took longer and used more monoprop than I'd've liked.

And now, the multiple time-sensitive burns in too-quick succession over, everyone is settling in to the new Munar Station (Jeb is already plotting a clandestine EVA to paint over the official "Munar Station One" insignia with "Jebediah Kerman's Gas-and-Go Fuel Stop and All-Night Diner: The View Is Out Of The World") and I get a well-earned respite. And attempt to act on the lesson learned: Don't Do Too Many Things At Once.

[Duke23]

The descent for my Duna rover went pretty well. I didn't land exactly where I wanted to, but I also didn't need to use the attached engines to deorbit or to touch down, so I instead used them to change the course a tiny bit. Instead of deorbiting with the engines attached to the rover's chute cluster, I used the SCANSat probe it was attached to which had a good bit more DV to set up the descent, then decoupled, then brought the probe back into a stable orbit and switched to the rover.

This may have been a little silly but I wanted to take a "more realistic" approach to my exploration instead of what I did in my last game which was to fire a Kerbal over there at my earliest convenience, accidentally strand him, then leave him there for about 3 years until I had the tech to go back and pick him up.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Duke23

[Hannu]

I am going to finish my hard luck Dres exploration. It should be a routine "explore Dres" -contract to get money for expensive Jool exploration. I had a three man mothership, separate lander and separate science lab and fuel tank unit. Ascent from Kerbin and trans Dres injection went flawlessly. Problems arose when I noticed that ship was near Dres and there had not been planned trajectory correction maneuver. I had forgot to add an alarm to Kerbal Alarm Clock or had accidentally deleted it. I had near optimal amount fuel and too late course correction consumed about 100 m/s too much and dangered a return trip.

Fortunately I had enough supplies (I use TAC life support) to wait rescue ship from Kerbin. I made a simple unmanned ship with reserve fuel and living supplies for delayed return and launched it during next window. Kerbals made landing and collected science but instead of returning in planned window they waited additional resources. It went nominally and kerbals could make an additional landing and had enough snacks for return trip.

I noticed a problem number two soon after trans Kerbin injection. It was very severe one. Mothership was a slightly modified crew transport vehicle for Jool exploring. I had two models of them. Older one had a command pod with parachute, heat shield (Deadly re-entry) and decoupler. A newer one, an advanced economy model, did not have, it make an orbit insertion burn and rendezvous to the Kerbin Station. Unfortunately, I took newer one in assembly phase but thought that it was older model. So, kerbals did not have possibility to aerobrake and reentry and not enough fuel to Kerbin orbit insertion.

Short investigation of possible rescue mission orbits told that I can rendezvous with an unlucky ship if I make a 2100 m/s burn from 24 degrees inclined 300 km Kerbin orbit and a huge 8800 m/s at rendezvous time. It was possible but took an expensive 600 t launch. It is extremely difficult to set accurate orbits in KSP, even with MechJeb, because the game does not give needed information, but with couple of tricks I got the correct orbit and burns went as expected. When 8800 m/s rendezvous burn was completed, distance to target was 200 km. The rescue mission was easy to finish. I noticed also, that SQUAD had fixed numerical problems which made Sun orbit rendezvouses difficult about the time of 0.20 (thanks Squad). Kerbals have now re-entry possibility and they are on optimal trajectory about 50 days from Kerbin SOI. Everything seems good and probably kerbal losses can be avoided. However, guys in financial department are not happy for some reason. I think that I have to make couple of business launches (Fine Print) and explore Moho.

[KevinW42]

I made an SAS powered "helicopter".

Yes, it really does fly by itself, and yes, it is pretty much impossible to control.

[Jovus]

Maiden flight of the Anthropopheron I, a light crew transport spaceplane, to finally man my orbital station:

This is my first fully successful spaceplane. I've one other that can technically get to space, but it doesn't have enough dv for anything useful once it gets there.

[soulsource]

I haven't had time to play much the last weeks, but finally yesterday, after hours of driving, Dondas Kerman reached his destination, a Fine Print rover mission target.

Well, I was slightly disappointed when I found out that the "anomalies" Fine Print wants you to inspect not necessarily correspond to real anomalies (aka easter eggs)... Well, at least driving around with a rover doesn't cost any funds, so I could finish a contract with 100% profit

The only drawback is, that Dondas now has to drive back all the way to the munar base station, what means about 5 hours of in-game time, what probably boils down to more than 2 (probably boring) hours of real time when using physics warp.

Btw: I've now finally decided to ignore my "no quicksave" policy for long distance rover missions. They are just too annoying without physics warp, yet with physics warp it's way to easy to break the rover apart...

[Pigbear]

cried because i can't even get to the mun

[magnemoe]

My first extreme eva, landing on Gilly from orbit with an kerbal, much easier than I expected, actually easier than landers. Getting back to the mothership was much harder.

Yes its my own fault, was doing an sweep up to 80 km above Gilly for an engine test contract and did the eva landing to plant a flag because it was boring.

Problem was that it was hard to intercept the ship without getting an escape trajectory and then the intercept is not show.

[capi3101]

Had some issues with KAS last night; couldn't get it to release some radial connectors from containers I had sent up to assist in the construction of Mere. Turns out the problem was I was using KAS 0.4.5 (latest version is 0.4.8); updated and the problem went away. I did go ahead and send another lock up to Mere yesterday; got the two ends to ports to match up without issue, so I'm beginning to wonder if the KAS parts will be necessary. I'll send up another one tonight and if its docking goes well I'll get rid of number two (the one that's been giving me headaches) and consider replacing the first one (the one that, despite the game insisting it's docked, has a nice little gap between it and the connecting module.

Ready to be done building that station so I can grind out the Mun.

I did go ahead and install the LoadOnDemand mod with the intent of saving some of my computer's notoriously low memory for other things. Not sure whether or not I like it just yet. I'll give it another go tonight.

[magnemoe]

And a Tylo landing.

Pretty happy with this lander, if had 4, 90 liter drop tanks too. One mistake was to have uneven amount of fuel in the four tanks, if two of them run dry its an abort anyway.

Next target is Vall.

[xtoro]

This is not only today, but yesterday too since it flew all night

Still going using only solar panels and electric propellers...

Probably going to be doing this tomorrow too

[Francois424]

I tried the asteroid redirect mission like NASA would do it. I've sent an unmanned probe to capture the asteroid around Kerbin and then i brought it into a high retrograde Mun orbit. After that I've launched a crewed spaceship, which docked to the capture probe.

http://i.imgur.com/lLKvvo5.jpg

Capture burn 1 in high Kerbin parabolic orbit. Periapsis is at 6000km.

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

Capture burn 2 in low Mun orbit to archieve a circular retrograde Mun orbit at 500km.

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

Collecting samples with manned spaceship docked to the capture vehicle.

What are those engines and their particle effect ? Looks amazing.

[Jon Tash]

So today in the KRSS - Explorer I Main Mission I launched the lander from Duna and docked with the mothership. There I planned a course to Eeloo. It was a really long wait to departure (a little more than 1 kerbal year). The journey to go to Eeloo was even longer, like always.

A little note here, I realized that my fission reactor had eat a lot of my Uranium during this journey. I have enough Uranium for 12 years of travel (before going to Duna, yesterday, I had enough for 22 years of travel).

I calculated the next departure time to go to my last destination (Eve), I will leave in 37 k-days and it will be my last long journey. The epic voyage of the KRSS - Explorer I and its crew, Jeb, Bill and Bob, is coming to an end. Let's see what Eve has prepare for me tomorrow.

[astropapi1]

How do you plan to ascend from Eve with that lander?

[Jon Tash]

How do you plan to ascend from Eve with that lander?

I don't, once the lander will land on Eve I will leave it there with its crew. I will probably also land an habitation module (launched from Kerbin) on Eve so Jeb, Bill and Bob have more space to live. It is my last big mission in this version of KSP.

[RW-1]

Have nearly gone broke is smaller missions to mun and minimus, but have a probeship 4 years out from Jool, making decisions on what I can accomplish in the interim, or will succumb to warping ahead 3.5 years to begin that mission, so far the vote is to wait it out.

[Dat_Spacewaffle]

I captured my 1st asteroid, a class D. the only issue with it is its highly inclined, and highly eccentric, and I have this fear that if I do anything with the orbit, the asteroid will end up encountering the Mun and being either flung into Kerbin or out of Kerbin's SOI. Oh well, I'm still going to build a base on it.

[arne_brun]

Did a multipurpose mission with a spaceplane carrying a munrocket.

Jebediah and Bobfurt were designated pilots for this mission. First up was to rescue Lanfrin in Kerbin orbit. When they got Lanfrin into the spaceplane, Jebediah recommended that Lanfrin should take a trip to the mun. He agreed and enter the munrocket (since there was no room in the spaceplane cockpit).

Munrocket was undocked and Lanfrin was on his own.

Jebediah and Bobfurt went on to rendesvouz with a Asteroid Catcher vessel. They decided who should board the vessel with rock-paper-scissors. Jebediah won with the spacekraken-move. Bobfurt took it like a man.

The Munrocket wasn't fitted with parachutes, so Lanfrin had to rendesvouz with my spacestation i LKO, where i have 5x parachute probes, for this kind of missions. The parachutes were flown up to the station with a spaceplane a while ago.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Kerbal01]

built my first successful plane, suing spaceplane plus. max speed using basic jets is 600 m/s. really high lift due to its large wings

[Red Iron Crown]

built my first successful plane, suing spaceplane plus. max speed using basic jets is 600 m/s. really high lift due to its large wings

I hope you get a nice settlement from SP+.