What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Brotoro]

Posted Part 39 of my Longterm Laythe adventure.

Explosive Pol surface bugs drove me batty.

[Zilentification]

Sent Shepnie Kerman on board the Duna Orbiter 1 (I'm great with names) to place three communication satellites around, you guessed it, Duna!

The rocket's launch starts with igniting the main liquid fueled engine. Once it is running at full thrust and no problems have been detected, Launch Control ignites the four SRB's and milliseconds later detaches the Launch Clamps.

Blast off!

Thirty seconds after launch the main engine is throttled down to 11% to limit stress on the aircraft but keep the engine ignited. If all goes well the boosters should carry the Duna Orbiter 1 to a comfortable 100km apopasis before being jettisoned. Then the main engine is throttled back up to 100% for the transfer burn to send it on its way to Duna. The engineers behind the design decided to run with uninsulated tanks to squeeze more fuel into the rocket, so it was important that there was no delay between launch and the transfer burn. Any time wasted would result in precious oxygen boiling away. Once the burn is complete, the liquid fuel engine and its tanks are separated.

Lastly, the final stage is powered by a MRS four-in-one nuclear engine. This will do the remaining maneuvers including the capture at Duna. Our scientist are still unsure about Duna's atmosphere so it was deemed too much of a risk to use it to aerobrake. Hopefully valuable SCIENCE from this mission should reveal whether or not we can do so in future.

Here's the launch!

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[qromodynmc]

I was watching videos,found this,These are really looking like kerbal planes

[Tex_NL]

I was watching videos,found this,These are really looking like kerbal planes

They had some crazy idea's back then and some even crazier airplane designs. Although I doubt all designs in that video are actual WWII.

[Concentric]

Developed a new spaceplane, brought Bob home, and reshuffled the crew on Bastion.

Above is a picture of the Sweeper in its (probably) final form. Extraneous engines have been removed, as have unneeded solar panels. As it can fly by probe core, I might make a variant that replaces the cockpit with a crew cabin, to double the capacity, but I'll have to check it still functions perfectly. The Sweeper is capable of delivering 600 units of LFO in the usual LFO mix ratio to Bastion and flying back to the runway, making it a good way to top off Bastion's tank, particularly after a Gosling mission. It's not a large fuel-carrier, just a basic, easy to handle spaceplane that can also deliver a bit of fuel.

An image from earlier in its development (the first version, no probe core), demonstrating speed-building capacity. Running purely on turbojet power, the Sweeper can reach surface speeds over 1.3km/s at altitudes over 28km, which isn't bad, I think.

I dumped 400 units LFO as a test case, dropped of Hanwise and began to fly back.

Not the most efficient deorbit, and I did fire up the engines on the way down. That caused me to overshoot somewhat, but fortunately the Sweeper is rather easy to control at both low and high speeds, so I managed to turn about and land facing west.

---

Now that I had a plan to get Bob and his experiments down from Bastion, it was time for him to return. I waited until things seemed to be in a good position for a daylight liftoff and rendezvous, then docked with the transfer stage. The satellite-tank had been undocked when Bob began his landing, so it had drifted away from the transfer stage by now.

I decided to burn my escape immediately, and use a Munar gravity assist to make the orbit more similar to the Mun return I did previously. A little tweaking before the encounter reduced relative inclination of the resultant orbit to Bastion, and a burn at Mun periapse lowered Kerbin periapse into the atmosphere. A final adjustment at the descending node matched inclinations and further lowered the periapse before the aerobrake. I ran out of monopropellant at this point.

A single pass at 38km brought apoapse below 800km, close enough that I decided to do the rest with my engine. A few maneuvers got me a nice, close intercept just before the solar terminator.

I came to a complete relative stop under 100m away. The distance makes engine-only docking a little easier, so that was completed without trouble. The blue-tinted base light of Bastion clarified when the station was pointing at the Gosling, which also came in handy. Then, I filled up all Gosling tanks and launched the second version of the Sweeper.

---

Billy-Bobley and Lomund were in the cockpit this time. I don't know which of those two did it (probably not Lomund, he seems sensible), but someone pulled back on the pitch control far too hard at takeoff. (Actually, I held the key too long, and once I'd flipped to retrograde I decided to keep holding and hope for exactly what happened.) The plane did a vertical loop the instant it came off the runway, barely missing touching the runway a second time with its rear wheels (and the turbojet). Looked cool, though. Anyway ascent and docking were straightforward, and more efficient than the previous - perhaps in part because I disabled the 24-77s once I realised they were entirely superfluous.

While I transferred 600 units of LFO and topped off the station's monopropellant tank, Bob performed an EVA transfer with all the experiments. I don't think you can transfer those internally yet. Billy-Bobley and Lomund got onto the station, and Bill decided he wanted to come back to the surface, too. Lomund won the Rocket-Paper-Scissors tournament to get the right to sit in the Cupola rather than the crew cabins - apparently Rocket always wins. Who knew?

I performed the deorbit entirely with the monopropellant tanks, as there was less than 10 units of liquid fuel and less than 25 of oxidiser left. The jet engine was only fired up once in the descent to fine-tune it, but I believe I might have been able to get away with just gliding back. The landing itself was also straightforward, bringing home over 400 science points and completing a couple of data-collection missions. I mean, I could have just performed transmissions for those, but a return is fine, too.

Afterwards, I performed a couple of revisions to the design, removing the 24-77s and the OX-L panels and slightly reshuffling the OX-STAT ones. This brought the cost of the plane under 45k, not that that cost is the number that matters. The fuel cost is below 750 funds, IIRC.

Edit: A quick couple of notes on the Sweeper - the front tank has half the oxidiser that it could, and the rear one has 90%. Both have all the LF they can carry, and the front one is disabled until after rocket engines are activated for CoM reasons. This is where the jet fuel comes from. The rear pair of tanks (with the fuel lines leading in) actually remain full for the entire flight, right up until they are emptied into the station. Also, the name comes from the slightly swept wings.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Concentric

[GloriousWater]

Spent the last few hours redirecting a class D asteroid, which 'simulations' showed was on a collision course with KSC. It's now in a 221x355km orbit as the ship sorta ran out of fuel.

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[Kowgan]

I was watching videos,found this,These are really looking like kerbal planes

I laughed at the soldiers turned out with casual ground uniforms in such a high altitude, at 2:50

[Stubby]

Finally did my first mission to Dres! This is also my first post to the forums, after just browsing for months.

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[coreross]

I made a space Tug

[cantab]

Hi Kerbol.

[Starwhip]

WHAT?

How did I even do this? Isn't building destruction mass based?!?

I was just fooling around with a spinner and then KABLAM!

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EDIT: It's UNSTOPPABLE!

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What can it not destroy? Who knows!

Edited November 9, 2014 by Starwhip

[cantab]

At long last, the Smith 2 reached Eeloo.

Seven planets, two moons, fourteen flybys, thirty-five years, and I don't know how much science. And finally, I have finished playing 0.23.5.

[CaptainArchmage]

I decided to try out Kerbin Real Size System (10x) and got into orbit, and the ion engines how have enough propellant to take me to the Mun and back, and probably to Minmus as well. I did not use FAR or Kerbal Engineer.

[Lunaran]

A little home improvement:

I'm not playing with FAR, so there's no aerodynamic reason I couldn't have launched with all those KAS containers just stuck on the outside already, but it's just fun to have work to do in space.

I wound up with more work to do than I'd expected. The delivery stage for what I just now decided to call the Crow's Nest module had a probe core, battery, and RemoteTech antenna so I could deorbit it after delivery, but I underestimated d/V requirements to get to a 250km orbit. Frank and Camski had to take the Albion crew shuttle, rendezvous with it, bring it back and dock both, leaving Burlong all alone aboard the station. Then it was refuel, swap Camski for Burlong, grab some Pipe Ends that I'm now glad I decided to pack, barnacle them onto the bottom of the Albion somewhere, then rendezvous again with the empty delivery stage to pump enough fuel into it that it could deorbit itself as planned.

Not a bad afternoon of distraction for a save I had planned on using for putting a flag on every world.

[Nintendo]

Today, I made an orbital rendezvous with my 26-year-old science satellite. The satellite had a probe core, a thermometer, and an ion propulsion system , and two 6x1 solar panels (no xenon...). Everything, I believe, was part of a few experimental contracts that gave me early access to some things in career mode.

Anyways, today I took my Orbital Recovery Agent up into orbit. This is the first time I've used the claw in career.

In orbit:

Approach:

Attached!

Goodbye!

I was just fooling around mostly, but I decided to adjust the old satellite's orbit (The satellite is called... wait for it... "Orbiter I") to a more circular orbit at a nice and comfy 100 km. I had it at an elliptical orbit at first due to not actually having xenon for the ion engine... So, what better time to fix this issue?

I think I'll go and adjust the orbit of the Orbiter II satellite around the mun.

[BJ Quest]

Worked on creating usable kerbinite collector ships. Each converts kerbinite into fuel. K3 a bit to tall, K4 a bit massive and K3 Short just about right.

Then I had the wild idea of what about changing out the capsule to use new science instruments? Thus the creation of the Taurus plug and play ship. The biggest and most massive I have created with a single launch. this one has 4 capsules that can be attached to the rest of the K3 Short body for on ground planetary science/exploratory/refuel work. Taurus Plug and Play is ready for refuel then travel to... for testing.

[numerobis]

Landed on the Mun with my Laythe-ready spaceplane, got mucho science.

Got lazy on the return; I let MechJeb send me home to a nice 35km apoapsis for aerobraking. Something went wrong, because next thing I saw was my plane hurtling through 35km with lots of vertical speed -- did MechJeb send me to a 35km apoapsis above the core of Kerbin?

I tried to rescue it but botched the landing (on rough terrain, rather than at KSC), I'll have to try again tomorrow.

[Bigbootie]

Built this thing just because. It has twin Ion engines, all the latest mapping hardware and most science tools. I might make a space station one day, who knows...

And did some part testing in order to be able to use funds on stuff like the above pic.

[rodion_herrera]

Did a test for one of the largest "non-crazy" lifters I've ever built. On top is my Omnilander, which can land and take off from most anything except Eve and some moons of Jool.

Also, did a test of a shuttle-type winged vehicle in LKO.

[Geschosskopf]

I drove a rover to the spike mountain at Duna's north pole (this is high terrain detail).

There I briefly admired the awesome scenery of the inexplicable terrain features. Huge cliffs, deep canyons with stratified layers in the walls, and what appear to be the tire tracks of God's Own Rover radiating off into the distance. The rover, invisible at this distance, is in the red circle.

Then I got bored with it all and did a "Thelma and Louise" ending for the mission .

http://youtu.be/EpaC6_8cG5E

[Madrias]

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Even with KSP's stock pea-soup atmosphere, I think this still deserves a medal. That was nervewracking.

As for what tore the wing off in the first place... Tunnel dash gone horribly wrong on the one heading for the VAB. Clipped a wing on the inside of the tunnel, barely recovered enough to get the plane out of there, then decided, "Why the heck not? Let's see if I can put it down on the runway without ripping it apart or cratering the thing again." Most of my mission elapsed time was spent playing key-jockey with this thing, trying to line it up for a runway pass because I didn't want to risk uneven terrain ripping the landing gear off.

[Francois424]

Finished my Satellite network (remote tech caused the came to hang solidly 3 times, slowing my progress down, something about mono.dll causing access violation or something) but I finally finished it, brought the carrier home with a few points of bonus science, everyone safe and sound. All of that only for the flight computer for doing my long burns (I like Remote Tech version better), too bad it's not available as stand-alone.

Also learned that my upper playable limit is 600 parts. Below 600 it's easily playable, but beyond that it starts being annoying... Ok for a launch where I ditch a lot of it, but hardly worth it for inter-planetary travels.

Sadly no pictures, but if you search this thread, my satellites are all "Fairies".

[CatastrophicFailure]

I made a friggin spaceplace. I HATE spaceplanes! Even half-breed shuttle-esque spaceplanes. Wasn't really trying to, just didn't feel like going to bed yet, throw some Kerbal bits together, giggle at explosions, y'know how it goes. But the mahfugglin thing actually WORKED!

It worked so well I had to actually go back & recreate the early launch I hadn't bothered to screenshot.

Ugly as fishguts, right?

Launch was ok for a minute, then it started flopping around like a wounded animal since I hadn't bothered to strut a durn thing. Seriously, it looked like a cartoon critting clinging for dear life onto the rump of some other cartoon critter trying desperately to get away from it.

But before I know it, there is it! Sitting so serenely in a nice circular not-weird orbit with a stupid amount of delta-v left! I could have got this thing halway to the Mun still! But there it is, not even RCS or anything useful.

So I send it the other way, figuring it'll burn to a crisp with 6.4x DRE.

And once again I'm left slackjawed as it skips once or twice across the upper atmosphere, never getting very hot at all, slowing down all the time till it drops back thru the atmosphere and starts flopping around like a fish again.

It's night here, so I have no idea where "here" is or if there's anywhere to land even if I COULD get it under control, so I just pop the emergency chutes figuring it'll come down at some weird angle and break into several pieces.

Nope it just drifts down nice & slow like a cloud, touches down on its wheels with barely a bump, somehow I even turned the brakes on. And it just sits there, silently mocking me. I go on to spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of funds to extend the KCT Simulation time until morning and I get get a pic in the light (I HATE NITE PIX!).

This was over & done in an hour, while earlier today I spend many hours trying to design and get working a 2600-ton monstrosity for a Mun landing that doesn't fly near as nice.

Edited November 10, 2014 by CatastrophicFailure

[CatastrophicFailure]

Worked on creating usable kerbinite collector ships. Each converts kerbinite into fuel. K3 a bit to tall, K4 a bit massive and K3 Short just about right.

http://i.imgur.com/sIcF18r.png

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

http://i.imgur.com/zFM2FPr.png

Then I had the wild idea of what about changing out the capsule to use new science instruments? Thus the creation of the Taurus plug and play ship. The biggest and most massive I have created with a single launch. this one has 4 capsules that can be attached to the rest of the K3 Short body for on ground planetary science/exploratory/refuel work. Taurus Plug and Play is ready for refuel then travel to... for testing.

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

What's all the big red redness in the background on those first two?

[KerbMav]

And finally, I have finished playing 0.23.5.

I plan on getting there this saturday - for reals this time - I hope ...