What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Spacepigu]

that, my freind, is the coolest car i have ever seen in ksp not made by the god of cars vagani!

[Eddlm]

Hoo leee shet Mareczex

Today I'm testing the efficiency of jet engines as payload lifters. As they consume a lot less fuel, they should be perfect for the first stages of a launch... right?

Also testing the Air Brakes from the KAX mod. They do not only slow down planes...

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[Rotsuda]

Well... I just started playing KSP and for some reason decided to go to Laythe with a jet plane. now this might not seem that unusual but in my case it would be the first time I tried to leave Kerbin orbit in any kind of controllable manner. After launching an ion powered jet on a trajectory towards a Jool orbit I realized that it not only would take WAY too long to complete the trip and said plane couldn't carry enough Xenon to complete my maneuvering and fly well in the atmosphere.

Back to the drawing board and redesign the plane to make it more stable and carry less Xenon. Now, to get this redesigned plane to Jool I decided to make a "carrier" for it.

Now, like any self respecting KSP player I decided to do a test run with my new creation halfway through the designing phase to find major failures.

- Reached orbit? Check

- 60% fuel left in booster stage? Check

- Missing struts in middle of craft causing wobbling? Check

- Mun sighted in middle of screen? Check

"Why don't I try to enter orbit around the Mun to practice the maneuver before I'm halfway across the solar system?" And off I went, burning another 40% fuel to get on a trajectory towards the Mun. Turns out that you don't need as much fuel to enter an orbit than you need to break out of one. Now i'm orbiting the Mun with 10% fuel in the booster stage and full tanks in the carrier/station itself.

Since I got that far it felt like a waste to revert to the VAB but the unfinished craft would be unable to return to Kerbin due to a complete lack of landing legs and parachutes (remember, I was just going to see if the thing could even reach orbit). This left me with 2 options: leave the fully fueled, but useless, station in orbit untill I could return and pretent that it never happened OR I could use all that fuel to land.

I chose the latter option and did a de-orbit burn that would place me in the middle of the day side of the mun. I knew that landing a space station the length of a Rockomax jumbo fuel tank without losing my sideways speed would be a bad idea so I started to slowly kill the speed until I was slowly falling straight down... Way too late I realize that I had braked too early and was descending into the darkness of the Mun's night side.

There I am, 10000 meters above the Mun trying to make my first ever powered landing, in a space station, that was never intended to leave space, which on top of that is only half-finished and in complete darkness.

This story had a happy ending though as I only made HALF the craft blow up on impact with the ground.

And so Bill Kerman became the first one to land on the Mun. He also became the first kerbal to knock off all the solar panels on his lander when trying to re-enter the cabin. (the fact that I only remembered those light AFTER I had landed does make me feel a bit... yeah)

Here is the entire craft in all it's sweet, sweet, unfinished glory in the VAB (faults have been fixed in the new version, including lights at the bottom and landing legs, just in case)

In short: Today I turned a space station into a Mun station... Bill Kerman is now waiting for me to construct an actual lander so he can get a ride home since I doubt that I'd reach orbit with only 8 RCS thrusters, regardless of the fact that I have 1700 units of fuel left for it.

[SpaceJuice]

What I did in kerbal space program is got the FAR plugin and B9 areospace pack and built one my self. When I tried a rocket, disintegration of my ship

[billbobjebkirk]

I made some flags with alternate NASA logos

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Don't worry about white outlines, they go away in game.

[Belphegor]

made some good progress today after a few days of mostly failures. i docked another module to a refueling station in LKO, a few more and the station will be finished. i also installed KAS and placed some struts on it as it started to flex.

then i did some preparations for a big rover mission to minmus. first a bunch of contracts for funding, launched a manned satellite to the mun to get that last bit of science i needed to unlock wheels, and finally put together a low-cost rocket to lift all the modules and rovers to minmus. the idea is to recover the lifting stage with parachutes by putting a probe core on it. the next stage to complete the orbit can be re-used for the transfer after refueling at the station in LKO, and should hopefully have enough fuel to return to kerbin for recovery after dropping a payload in minmus orbit. i'm doing all this because i'll probably need to launch many rockets to get all the parts up there.

i also made a small recon rover that can take off and land vertically on landing legs (basically a small rocket with wheels on the side). this will be used to test this new carrying vessel. it should be capable of deorbiting and landing on it's own so i can recon for a spot to build a small base. now i just have to work out a bigger rover with all the science equipment, a skycrane, design a small base to refuel the rovers and landers and to store the data in a science module, and probably some other things as well. eventually i'd like to recover all the data from all biomes in one go with the skycrane that was used to build the base. the initial recon rover has a docking port on the front (top) so it can be used as a tug to help with the return to kerbin and thus i can keep the weight of the skycrane itself down a bit.

this will be the biggest mission i have done so far and a few of these things like the ground base are new to me so it will be a nice challenge

Edited November 20, 2014 by Belphegor

[CatastrophicFailure]

Today in 6.4x I finally pushed my workhorse Collossus launcher to its absolute limits.

By stretching the upper stage tank, adding another 5 tons, and using a lower parking orbit I was able to get this rover 95% of the way to the Mun. This is way beyond design spec. It just barely made it, one long burn from ignition to orbit, no separate circularization burn.

95% because the upper stage couldn't quite circularize the orbit. As it was I only pulled off the landing with a razor thin margin.

At skycrane release there was barely a hundred m/s left in the decent tank.

So probably because it weighed so little by that point I didn't even get a decent explosion out of it when it burned out & came down. Just bounced across the surface.

And despite the landing its self being a stunning success, I'm apparently no where near the anomaly my contract sent me out looking for, the scanner can't detect anything. Looks like I'll have to resort to installing ScanSat to find the darn thing and send the little rover on a loooooong journey. Fortunately the Mun in 6.4x is flat as a pancake and ideal for long unstable rover treks.

Edited November 20, 2014 by CatastrophicFailure

[CatastrophicFailure]

I noticed that in catastrophicfailures 6.4x moon mission the fuel tower was destroyed. Having some fun doing target practice?

You've got better eyes than me, I didn't even know it was broken... or have the slightest idea how it got that way....

[Treldon]

I built a TIE Fighter, pretty much to scale

(Had to cut back on solar panerls, part count is already almost 400)

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[federicoaa]

Testing to launch some heavy and big payloads, and well, the new explosion effects are quite nice XD

[capi3101]

Tweaked my Small Fries 7 spaceplane design to deliver a Class A-B tater catcher to orbit. Actually made it and was able to deorbit the plane, but she didn't have enough juice to make it back to KSC from its point of deorbiting. Wound up landing it in grasslands - damn thing bounced twice and then tailstruck on the final landing. Fortunately I've got Recovery Transponder Fitting turned up to the highest commitment level and was able to salvage 100% of the remaining parts, which amounted to about 85% of the launch funds recovered, so that bit wasn't a total disaster.

No, the mission scrubbing bit was the fact that I launched the stupid thing on the wrong trajectory. I had forgotten that when I attempted (key word: attempted) to launch a similar payload the night before, I'd waited three hours for Kerbin to turn into the right position before launch...

My program's flush with cash at the moment, so it's not a complete catastrophe...still, that's √30,000 I won't get a return on...

[eddiew]

Discovered that there are G class asteroids (at least in my modded install). It said A class all the way up to it, and fulfilled an A-class capture mission, but all the science experiments said G. Now I'm wondering what happened to F class, and why G is smaller than A, but E is bigger than C

Tomorrow I shall work out what to do with my three new roid-moons... they seem wasted in high orbit.

[Barney]

Installed FAR and made this little space plane called Ravenswing.

And had to modify my MER - 60 and test fly it to find that now it has ~1000dV of excess fuel/weight... Does FAR change the aerodynamic settings that much..?

And i know that some of you might think that using mechjeb is lame but i use it for test flights like this to save time...

[cantab]

And had to modify my MER - 60 and test fly it to find that now it has ~1000dV of excess fuel/weight... Does FAR change the aerodynamic settings that much..?

Pretty much. That 1000 m/s is what's lost to drag in the stock aerodynamics, and it's a huge amount. IIRC real rockets lose maybe 100 m/s to drag, if that.

[Keranolist]

I am starting to build an OKS Station for the first time. Im halfway through and for now everything looks fine but as far as I know myself I will end with a big "Dammnit, I forgot XY"!

I think I'm kinda finished in around an hour and will post pics then! (unless I'm going unconscious because of head->table)

[electronicfox]

I refined my single-launch extraplanetary launchpad ship even further. It is now smaller, wheeled, includes a crane and can now pack-up and drive elsewhere.

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I am now happy with this design. I just need to create a much bigger battery bank to get it through the nights.

[KevinW42]

In a previous mission to Laythe, Jeb insisted on landing by the beach so he could go for a swim. He didn't realize that this section of coast was steeply sloped until it was too late and his lander ended up tipping over. Thus begins my first successful interplanetary rescue mission.

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[GreeningGalaxy]

In keeping with my tradition of truly colossal KSPI vehicles, I've outdone myself once again.

Pictured here, hovering static over Minmus on its plasma/beam-core antimatter engine is the first prototype of my biggest ship yet, the Thalassa 5A.

Note that not all the parts are casting shadows.

Its engine puts out a maximum of 6667 kN of thrust at an Isp of 56,000s. Right now, it's only putting out a fraction of that thrust to hold itself up over Minmus's tiny gravity.

That engine is 5 meters across, as shown here in relation to a kerbal. Resting the whole thing on that nozzle is probably not the best idea, but the kerbs don't appear to care, in much the same way that they don't care about standing around when the exhaust from a beam-core antimatter rocket is blasting into the ground at their feet at 600 kilometers per second.

To prove his fearlessness, my kerbal stands on top of the antimatter containment unit and gives the reactor a warm fuzzy hug.

Note the bizarre shadows showing through the antimatter reactor. Shadows are being really weird in my game.

A later and even more colossal version of this ship holds an entire quad-engine fusion-powered lander inside a shuttle bay. The lander is really quite heavy and hard to maneuver, even with its clusters of three RCS ports. The ship still easily pulls 6-figure delta-V with the lander on board, though.

The final version of the Thalassa 5A ditches the heavy fusion reactor in favor of all-antimatter power. It can accelerate at about 9.7 m/s², which is a bit less than previous versions, but its gigantic fuel tank space gives it a total delta-V of over 500 kilometers per second, which is enough for very fast interplanetary missions.

I'm not actually exactly sure where I'm going with this ship - I flew it to Jool today (on a standard Hohmann transfer), and the fuel gauge still hasn't even registered less than full. The biggest challenge will probably be getting the big heavy lander back inside that docking bay after it's done its surface stay.

[Weegee]

Today, I tested a method to get my Laythe Scout Plane to orbit. I also needed to practice landings, so I brought it back down to Kerbin, landed, and took a look around.

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[Steambirds]

I made a pretty rad lookin' truck. No pictures right now, sadly.

[Jouni]

I completed the 20th refueling mission to my 6.4x Tylo ship, with 9 or 10 more to go. At around 35 minutes/mission (excluding any accidents), that's quite a lot of work to get the ship going.

With large ships, the final approach before docking is almost always from side, as rotating the ships takes a lot of time.

DRE is not too deadly even in the 6.4x Kerbol System. The upper parts of the fuel tanker almost always survive the reentry, unless I deliberately try to destroy them. If the landing site happens to be on ground, some of the parts may even survive. This time, the remaining parts bounced off when the 2.5 m to 3.75 m adapter hit the ground, and the probe core survived.

[Belphegor]

launched the first flight of a rover and science base to minmus surface. the recon rover (that doubles as a small space tug) landed nicely and found a suitable location for the base after driving/sliding around a bit. i was hoping to recover all the rocket parts besides the boosters because of the amount of flights it's going to take but despite placing a probe core on the lifting stage it dissapeared. or maybe it just crashed before i bothered to look at it i'm not sure

[cantab]

Tried out KIDS (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52882), which motivated me to look into real-world engine stats. A multiplier of about .85 brings the KSP engines down into the range of real-world hypergolic-fuelled engines, which I think makes sense and is probably something I'll go with. Though I may end up changing Isp's with module manager configs to get more control, and use KIDS simply to make thrust change with Isp.

Flew a Minmus free-return mission with KIDS(+FAR+DRE+TACLS), finding that such a flight is possible despite the low mass and speed of Minmus. However, the pod burnt up on a too-aggressive re-entry. It still had plenty of ablative shielding but just went boom. Guess I need to be more cautious with DRE - or add moar heatshields.

Looks pretty similar to this rocket built for a Mun free-return in stock: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100685-getting-to-mun-at-low-level?p=1552082 which is encouraging, suggesting the .85x Isp scaling with FAR gives a payload fraction to LKO that's not too much less than in stock. (Ferram's preset is a .81x scaling, but it made the Isp figures a bit low for my liking.)

Edited November 21, 2014 by cantab
Correct, delta-V doesn't change

[Dokkter Oktoberfest]

i landed on laythe for the first time! it was really exciting. you see, im not really that amazing at the game but, i made this rocket that is so good. i mean, SO. GOOD. i just cant get the landing module up to the orbiting thing. i thought i might have been able to return, but i dont think i can.. so then i landed a rover there knowing i wouldnt have to bring it back since i couldnt.

[Eddlm]

Congratulations Dokkter! Laythe is really far from Kerbin. It's really an achievement.

I'm still inside Kerbin SOI, learning more and more until I can do anything outside it.

Today i've been cleaning orbital debris with this guy

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And consequently I've learned that you can't target the center of mass of a vessel/debris. Only by rotating at high speeds I've been able to do a deorbit burn so that booster falls to Kerbin.